


The Importance of Being Karkat

by adiostoreadoormat (choicescarfsylveon)



Series: TIBK [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Depression, Family, Hate to Love, Humanstuck, Inspired by Music, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Rewrite/Repost, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-09-20 09:49:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 74,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choicescarfsylveon/pseuds/adiostoreadoormat
Summary: Your name is Karkat Vantas, and honestly? You prefer the life you live online. By day you’re a regular social outcast at Valley View High, but on the Internet you are unabashedly KK, the passionate, overzealous talk show host of the radio program Quadrant.Until a miscommunication with your ex causes your shit talking show to go viral. Your newfound stardom comes with personal tensions, viruses and threats from an international hacker, and the attention of the fast talking, fast living Dave Strider.Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you're in for the ride of your life.Continuation of the previously orphaned fic. Now with pesterlogs!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, friends. This is the author of The Importance of Being Karkat back again with more Davekat. After like, a whole year and some change.
> 
> I released the fic from my pseud not long after I started it because I was unsure where I wanted to go number one, and I was also working on another massive WIP for a different fandom. Now though, I have thought a lot about this ship after re-reading Homestuck for the nth time, and feel ready to continue this thing! I am going to be posting the previous four chapters here, and then we will pick back up with Chapter 5!

 

 _Don't switch on me, I got big plans_  
_We need to fall off to the islands_  
_And get you gold, no spray tans_  
_I need you to stop running back_  
_To your ex, he's a waste man_  
_I wanna know how come we can_  
_Never slash and stay friends?_  
_I'm blem for real,_  
_I might just say how I feel_

\- Drake, "[Blem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GIWWFdOw_0)"

 

 

♋️

 

 

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and honestly? You prefer the life you live online. On the Internet you are the unabashed KK, the passionate, overzealous talk show host of the radio program The Quadrant.

 

Your coder friends Sollux and Nepeta, and her boyfriend Equius, work with you at the station nightly to keep up The Quadrant. You met twinArmageddons and arsenicCatnip respectively on the subreddit for your California cow town. It turned out they were also thirteen and also bought weed from the waitress at Denny’s on Lake St. Last year, Nepeta got all three of you jobs at the Ensena community radio station during the 2 a.m. block, which Equius was running as a project for his college thesis. The township Ensena, where anonymity is granted to you as a non resident, is a mostly overrun forrest known for its hiking trails that grace the Instagrubs of college students, and its quaint, low income trailer-park-dwellers who are tacitly Not Allowed into the much nicer suburbs of the Valley.

 

The point of Equius’s no name show on 94.4 WBFN was definitely not originally The Quadrant. But within weeks of your guest debut, your time slot was one of the most listened to numbers on the station. A la Alice Piezeki's The Chart from _The L Word_ —don’t fucking judge, it’s a good show _—_ users of Quadrant can draw on a never-ending virtual "wall" and make connections between themselves and other usernames. The kicker about the wall though is this: no characters, words, sentences or real life identities allowed. Only drawings, emojis, memes, and .gifs can be used to convey a user’s feelings.

 

Over the last year, you and your misfit friends have watched your smörgåsbord of sometimes-obscene, sometimes-hilarious, and sometimes-heartbreaking graffiti grow to a crowd of 3,000 a month. Many users have a tradition of logging in and updating the shipping wall live with your broadcast.

 

Even though it’s a pain in the ass to drive forty five minutes to the other side of the metaphorical tracks, in the middle of the night no less, something about the lovesick teenagers who call into your show — and your weird hacker friends who stay up late to ramble with you — make it all worthwhile. By day you’re a regular social outcast at Valley View High in the suburbs, where your companionship is stifled to your childhood friend Kanaya and her girlfriend Rose by proxy, and the sometimes-acknowledgment you get in the halls from your estranged senior half brother Kankri. But honestly, you’d rather be a loser than get sympathy from that judgmental spitwad.

 

At least you've got a job — emceeing — that you’re good at. At least to Sollux, Nepeta and Equius, you’re the leader of a mischievous and fascinating social experiment. Your listeners are kind of your life.

 

“Greetings, earthlings, and welcome to this hour of Quadrant with your host, the most cursed individual on this god forsaken planet. Tonight, I invite you all to take a buggy and this-makes-me-depressed-about-the-state-of-the-world-we-live-in journey though the self indulgent, fuck boy mongering circle jerk that is the new and somehow completely fucking worthless update of Cindr!”

 

“If it wasn’t for you all I wouldn’t touch anything WhatPumpkin develops with a six foot pole, but here I am sifting through this hot, steaming garbage. In version 11.8.1.no-matter-how-many-updates-you-push-your-fundamental-code-will-still-suck, not only did they not fix the thing where you can edit someone’s bio and not only can you ‘super burn!’ people — as if we needed one more convoluted and vaguely-sounds-like-an-STD way to avoid sending that message that says ‘You’re hot, and I’m desperate!' — but as of this date, all your Chumbook friends, including your mom and embarrassing grandpa who tags you in things, are openly synced and displayed on your public Cindr profile. If you’ve deleted your Chumbook account, don’t worry! It digs up your past friends from the server farm grave.

 

“Our users have expressed their distastes with the new Cindr app by dabbling in their usual absurdist graffiti on our wall. Memes include comparing Cindr to the newest Nylee Gender album flopping and apparently people’s ‘side hoes’ are being exposed by the udpate? Which I honestly am not fucking surprised about at all. Some of you people have no shame. Anyway, I think the real problem is the larger trend of big name social media sites assuming you want your parents and classmates knowing you RP as a half-dragon half-werewolf furry seeking cat-echidna hybrids on Devianpaint.

 

“Here with us now is the bane of my existence, my backend developer twinArmageddonth.”

 

“Fuck you for thaying I’d get anywhere near your backendth, KK.”

 

“Tell me, what is the fundamental problem with WhatPumpkin linking Cindr to Chumbook?”

 

“Firth of all, Chumbook ith for overtharing thquareth who hang out with their parenth and don’t care enougth about their data being thold for leth than pennieth on the dollar — ”

 

“In your opinion — ”

 

“ — by corporationth that are making literal buckethloadth thelling proprietary thpyware to dumbatheth! I have proof and I can prove it. Thecond, thith app taketh up ath much thpace ath KK’th mom did when the got pregnanth with him. There’th no reathon thith much RAM thould be thpent and no reathon FuckPumpkin’th app needth like ten thouthand permithions! Thith ith a dating app, not a live thync all my methages, phototh, dick picth and travel planth to thome ambiguouth cloud thever. Just thay no to thouleth and thameleth plugth who profit off our our private liveth, people.”

 

“Okay! Now that we’ve appeased our one man tin foil hat brigade, here is our expert on all things feminine, the crazy kittycat shipper girl. Which I call her with all the affection I can muster.”

 

“Thanks, KK! Now many of our feline identifying users are saying that they appurreciate the update! For one, it forces our potential purr-tners to be honest and open about their existing relationships! Many felines on Quadrant express their feelings with jealous or lonesome symbols! Ladies feel that purr-tners are not being honest about the time they spend with other kittens.”

 

“As a member of the male species, I can attest to this shit. Basically straight men are driven by two things, how they measure up to other men and how they measure up to other men’s perception of what females’ perception of them is. All of this is done without magically realizing that guess what, you self absorbed deadbeats? If you want to know what women want, maybe you should fucking speak to them. Talk about a wild concept!

 

“Which reminds me. Last night at 4 a.m. Quadrant user tatsandedm420 started a monogamous ship between himself and user pleasenodickpics. Pleasenodickpics responded by shipping tatsandedm420 with at least fifty other users in their network, all of whom confirmed these illicit affairs. Apparently tatsandedm420, aside from having terrible taste in music and probably overall life choices, has made out with more people in the last week than yours truly ever will.

  
“Jokes aside, I get it. Infidelity looks cool in movies and having cameras in our faces all the time makes us feel like we’re fundamentally useless and unlikeable unless we’re wanted by thousands of people at once. But you know what I miss? I miss the days when walking up to someone in person and telling them how you felt about them wasn’t such a fucking ordeal. Or at least something you guys didn’t express so much anxiety about. When we weren’t all hiding behind these projections and copy pasted pick up lines, and all our mistakes weren’t publicly re-traceable as part of our timelines.

 

“I miss when love was just. Simple. When it wasn’t an algorithm or a personality quiz, and when people were just. People. Living in a 3D world, passing hand written notes under the table, smelling roses together in the park. Actual roses with soft, velvet petals, and actual girlfriends with soft, loving hands.”

 

Sollux, Nepeta and Equius raise their eyebrows in tandem at the host.

 

“But alright, enough of that flowery bullshit. Let’s take some callers.”

 

 

♋️

 

 

There are moments when you realize that you aren’t happy with where you are now, but grateful that you’re not still where you used to be. Sitting in homeroom on the first day of classes the following morning is giving you that feeling. Freshman year was a toil because on top being in the midst of puberty's worst, of only having two trusted friends (both of whom are lesbians, and you know having gay friends doesn't  _make_  you gay but rumors mill because children are stupid), finally you were going out with the most badass, most aggravating girl of your dreams: the cuter-than-you, justice-seeking Terezi Pyrope, who you'd been in love with since fifth grade at least. But of course, because the universe loves to serve it to Karkat, who at your school did she end up cheating on you with? Dave Strider, the most annoying fake ironic douche in the Valley.

 

Blonde hair, slim waist, thick thighs, red eyes, Dave Strider is the most popular guy you know by virtue of his striking looks, his supposedly infallible sense of humor, and his relation to one Dirk Strider of the class of 2014. Not to mention Bro Strider, the famous producer. Dave’s been best friends with John Egbert since first grade, a bromance to rival the greats, and his family is rich as fuck. No, really, their rolls of TP are probably hundreds. Need you say more? You have nothing in common with the golden child, you know it, but like the two of you are cosmically fated, Dave usually has something inadvertently to do with the thorn in your side that is your self hatred. Like the whipped cream on top of the shit baked brownie sundae that is your life.

 

As if watching Terezi with him on social media and out of it isn’t enough, this year, you don’t have homeroom or pretty much any classes with Kanaya or Rose. Silently, you sit as your talkative classmates, the people you grew up around but never really bonded to, chat and catch up about their summers. Most of them spent them right here in the Valley. Supposing anyone wanted to ask what you’d done, they wouldn’t be able to. As much as you could while on campus, you kept your crab shaped headphones (we get it, you’re a Cancer) covering your ears until the last possible moment.

 

When the bell rings, Ms. Paint — the sweet older lady you’ve often had for homeroom — asks everyone to settle for announcements. Sometimes Terezi reads announcements in the mornings as she’s on the journalism staff. Just as you’re thinking it’d be nice not to hear the cacophonous voice that makes you miss her so much this frighteningly early, Terezi clicks on the PA system, clears her throat, and goes.

 

“ _Good morning, Valley View! Today I’d like to start the homeroom announcements a little bit differently. Many of us spent our summers partying and not doing the summer reading lists, while others of us took up passion projects that really meant a lot for us. Some others made a pact to get their grades up and try to get into college. And others, like my ex Karkat Vantas, started a community radio show where he gives inspirational tirades like the following. I think this should set the tone for the year we’re about to all have, don’t you?”_

 

“' _Greetings, earthlings, and welcome to this hour of Quadrant with your host, the most cursed individual on this god forsaken planet.'”_

 

This? No. This can’t actually be a thing that is happening.

 

“' _Tonight, I invite you all to take a buggy and this-makes-me-depressed-about-the-state-of-the-world-we-live-in journey though the self-indulgent, fuck-boy-mongering circle-jerk that is the new and somehow completely fucking worthless update of Cindr!'”_

 

Your homeroom is gasping, cackling, whispering and staring over their shoulders at you. “Oh my god, Karkat, is that really him?” “I’ve never heard him talk so much.” Meanwhile you flip up the hood on your sweartshirt and do your best impression of a turtle trying to commit suicide inside its own shell. As you bite your shaking lip, you imagine Terezi sitting there in the office, just sitting there smug as shit with the administrator locked out of the room behind her. Did she record you and plan to humiliate you last night? Why wouldn't she send you a message first?

 

“' _You know what I miss? I miss the days when walking up to someone in person and telling them how you felt about them wasn’t such a fucking ordeal. Or at least something you guys didn’t express so much anxiety about. When we weren’t all hiding behind these projections and copy pasted pick up lines, and all our mistakes weren’t publicly re-traceable as part of our timelines.”'_

 

“' _I miss when love was just. Simple. When it wasn’t an algorithm or a personality quiz, and when people were just. People. Living in a 3D world, passing hand-written notes under the table, and smelling roses together in the park. Actual roses with soft, velvet petals, and actual girlfriends with soft, loving hands.”'_

 

You know what you did to deserve this but also you don’t know what you did to deserve this. The oooh-ing and aaah-ing from your classmates right now sort of makes you want to die.

 

“Wow, um, class? Settle, settle please.” Ms. Paint answers her now ringing desk phone. “Hello, yes? Karkat? The principal wants to see you.”

 

 

♋️

 

 

In the ten minute break between home and first periods, you scurry hoodie up and head down to the L-shaped table on the outskirts of the quad. This is your meeting place with Kanaya and Rose, who this morning are already predictably sitting as much in each other’s laps as is allowed by school PDA rules. The two are sharing Rose’s headphones and iThrone for music.

 

When they see you, they both appear solemn, immediately remove their ear devices.

 

“If either of you say anything even  _resembling_  sympathetic about the broadcast, I’m going to lose my barely recollected shit.”

 

You plop down next to Kanaya and steal her half of the headphone unit.

 

“Taking things that well, I see,” says Rose.

 

“Look at the bright side,” says Kanaya as you quickly yank the headphone out in disgust — today is Alanis Morresette’s Greatest Hits day — “Valley View is so full of drama that I’m sure everyone forgot about it five minutes later.”

 

“During my walk of shame to the principal’s office, people yelled ‘Quadrant’ and ‘lover boy’ at my retreating figure. Ms. Paint, who’s known me since I was six, said she’s going to call me ‘KK’ for the rest of the year.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Your phone suddenly buzzes violently in your pocket. You see you have several missed calls from unknown numbers — oh boy — but more importantly, GC is trying to reach you.

 

gallowsCallibrator began pestering carcinoGenetecist at 07:49:03.

GC: ‘1F YOU W4NT TO KNOW WH4T WOM3N W4NT, M4YB3 YOU SHOULD FUCK1NG SP34K TO TH3M?’

GC: SUCH 4 W1LD CONC3PT TH4T NOT 3V3N YOU C4N H4NDL3 1T, STR4NG3R

CG: THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT.

CG: I’M LITERALLY SITTING IN THE EXACT SAME QUAD AS YOU.

CG: I CAN SEE YOU AT THE COOL TABLE WITH JOHN BUCKTOOTH EGBERT, MY INSUFFRABLE HALF BROTHER AND FIFTEEN OTHER ASSHOLES, CHEWING WITH YOUR MOUTH WIDE OPEN AND STABBING GAMZEE WITH YOUR CANE. HONESTLY WHY DO YOU STILL EVEN CARRY THAT GARRISH EYESORE? IT’S NOT LIKE YOU NEED IT SINCE YOU HAD SURGERY.

GC: MY C4NDY R3D C4NDY C4N3 1S NOT 4N 3Y3SORE! 1TS F4SHION4BL3, 3V3N K4N4Y4 THINKS SO

GC: 1TS NOT L1K3 SURG3RY F1X3D 4LL MY PROBL3MS

CG: STOP STARING BACK HERE AT KANAYA AND ROSE FOR APPROVAL.

CG: YOU BROKE UP WITH ME, SO I GET THE FRIENDS. THAT WAS OUR AGREEMENT.

GC: F111N3, 1 DONT C4R3 WH4T YOU TH1NK 4NYW4Y

GC: D4V3 L1K3S MY CANE

CG: OH MY GOD, DOES HE REALLY??????

CG: OF COURSE THE MASTER OF BRANDISHING AN INSINCERE AND SPECTACULARLY UNNECESSARY PERSONA THINKS SOMETHING LIKE A CANE COULD BE A GENUINE EXPRESSION OF ONES IDENTITY!

CG: OF COURSE, WITH HIS SELF SERVING HIPSTER ASS BLOGS, HIS THOUSAND DOLLAR GLASSES AND STUPID PARTIES!

GC: Y4WN

CG: ALSO, WHAT THE HELL, TEREZI? SERIOUSLY?

GC: WH4T

CG: YOU KNOW GODDAMN WELL "WHAT."

GC: 1 DONT KNOW WHY YOUR3 UPS3T. P3OPL3 L1KED 1T

GC: 1 DONT S33 ANYTH1NG WRONG WITH PROMOTING A FRI3ND WHO H4S T4L3NT ON MY PL4TFORM

CG: I’M SORRY I DIDN’T REALIZE THE ENTIRE PA SYSTEM AT VALLEY VIEW HIGH SCHOOL WAS LAID OUT LIKE A FUCKING RED CARPET FOR ONE TEREZI PYROPE.

CG: I’M NOT SUSPENDED OR ANYTHING BUT FORGIVE ME FOR NOT WANTING MY PRIVATE AND PERSONAL FEELINGS JUDGED BY EVERYONE I’VE KNOWN IN REAL LIFE SINCE THE FIRST GRADE. WHO ALREADY HATE ME BECAUSE I’M SHORT AND TERRIFYING LOOKING, MY PARENTS ARE DIVORCED AND I EMBARRASSED MYSELF IN FRONT OF EVERYONE ON STAGE THAT ONE TIME.

CG: YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HATE THE ASSHOLES HERE, AND STILL YOU GUT ME OPEN LIKE A DEAD FISH IN FRONT OF THEM. BLEW THE TOP OFF OF THE ONE ESCAPE I HAD FROM THIS COW TOWN I’ll NEVER GET AWAY FROM.

GC: UGH, K4RK4T

GC: TH3 V4LL3Y 1S NOT 4 COW TOWN

GC: 4ND S1NC3 WH3N 4R3 COMMUN1TY R4D1O BRO4C4STS ‘PR1V4T3’???

GC: STOP BL4M1NG M3 FOR TH3 1D3NT1TY CR1S1S YOU SHOULD H4V3 S33N COM1NG

GC: 4LSO 1 HOP3 ON3 D4Y YOU R34L1Z3

GC: P3OPL3 DONT H4T3 YOU 4S MUCH 4S YOU TH1NK TH3Y DO

CG: WELL I’M CERTAINLY CONVINCED THAT YOU DO!

GC: 4M 1 P1SSED THAT YOU FIN4LLY 4DM1TT3D YOU LOV3 M3, NOT TO MY F4C3, BUT TO 4 THOUS4ND STR4NG3RS YOU C4R3 4BOUT MOR3 TH4N M3???

GC: Y3S

GC: BUT 1 DONT H4T3 YOU

GC: 1 COULD N3V3R H4T3 YOU

 

“Karkat.”

 

“What, Kanaya?”

 

“I just thought you should know that people are staring.”

 

gallowsCallibrator ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist at 07:56:14.

 

gallowsCallibrator is offline.

 

Those who know you — the far and few between — know that as KK, you hate the status quo and embrace creative resistance. But here, at Valley View? While you avoid the stares and points from your classmates, you miserably watch Terezi across the way and desperately wish you were conventionally cool enough to keep her. Surrounded by friends, mostly boys, laughing and having fun without you and your self hatred making her feel insecure — you know you lost her because of social order.

 

In the real world, your know your place. And that place feels very small.

 

 

♋️

 

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering gallowsCallibrator at 14:01:48.

 

CG: I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE STILL LISTENING.

 

carcinoGeneticist ceased pestering gallowsCalllibrator at 14:02:20.


	2. Chapter 2

 

_C’mere rude boy boy, can you get it up?_  
_C’mere rude boy boy, is you big enough?_  
_Take it, take it, baby, baby_  
_Take it, take it, love me, love me_  
_Tonight I'ma let you be the captain_  
_Tonight I'ma let you do your thing, yeah_  
_Tonight I'ma let you be a rider_  
_Giddy-up giddy-up giddy-up, babe_

– Rihanna, "[Rude Boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA9bOgYYdqs)"

 

  

♋️ 

  

 

By the last bell of the afternoon, you’re thinking this day could seriously not get any worse. But unfortunately, you have to meet Kankri in his soccer mom sedan at the edge of the school parking lot, where no one can see you two, to get a ride home.

 

If your car wasn’t in need of a new tire – and if your distant machismo father didn’t demand “you boys” (read: only you, because Kankri's mom helps him) fix your car problems yourselves – you wouldn’t be asking your relation for anything. Ever since his latecoming transfer to your school district, when your shared father and his mother got remarried, you’ve always thought it’s been kind of bullshit that your hypocritcally Catholic, purity ring wearing, virgin of a half/step brother is popular by proxy and you aren’t. For some reason, Kankri Vantas has always been very close friends with and taken under the wing by the also somehow popular, freewheeling bisexual scumbag Cronus Ampora.

 

No one understands their relationship.

 

“I’d appreciate it if you removed your shoes before you got into my car,” Kankri says to you when you open the door. “I just had it washed.”

 

You do so and try to grumble your complaints as inaudibly as possible. You shut the door and he quickly pulls off, but not without scowling and sucking his teeth.

 

“For Christ’s sake.”

 

“What?”

 

“Put them back on.” He whines, rolls down the window on his side. “Your feet smell terrible.”

 

“Fuck you, I’ve been on my feet and at my desk, stewing in melodramatic jack and polygamy, for eight hours straight. And don’t say ‘So have I.’ I don’t need your preacher's gambit maxing out today.”

 

Your senior brother is quiet. (He doesn’t listen to the radio or anything when he’s in the car, what a freak, right? The solemn fuck.) But only for a moment.

 

“Just wait until Dad finds out what happened at school today.”

 

“That’s funny because I’m not planning on telling him, and if you do, Houston, there’s going to be a motherfucking problem. Got it? Principal Doc decided not to write me up or call home because I’m a chipper goddamn delight, I’m in Honors and AP, and it’s not my fault my crayon eating ex tried to sully my good name.”

 

“I’m just saying, you should really keep your personal life off the air and stop doing that stupid show. It’s embarrassing.”

 

Kankri goes on to tell you some new age nonsense about how "everyone needs a safe space but certain things don't need to be rubbed in people's faces" and the drive is only fractionally tolerable because, over the years, you’ve learned how to drown his voice out. At this point in your long estranged kinship he doesn’t even care when you pull out your crabphones, drag them over your mussed hair and too large ears. Shift your body starboard and press your hot nose up against the cold window. He just keeps talking.

 

The ten minutes to your neighborhood takes you through picturesque, green-tree-lined streets and white houses lined up perfectly for miles on end. This local waterhole, the big town mall, the names of the streets you’ve had memorized since you were a kid; it all makes you wonder what the rest of California is like outside the Valley. You can't wait to get out of this place.

 

When you get home, you immediately go upstairs to your bedroom and lock the door. Finally alone. You have hells of moderation to be doing on the Quadrant wall and forums and ~ATH code for class you should be writing. But ~ATH is an insufferable language to work with. Its logic is composed of nothing but infinite loops, or at best, loops of effectively interminable construction. Basically writing in it makes you want to kill yourself.

 

Your King sized bed is looking welcoming, entrapping. Full of dark, heavy blankets, discarded tissues, gaming controllers. Your half rolled joint full of mostly shake and a near empty quarter of weed from yesterday, plus your still full Zoloft medication, sit on the desk beside the bed. Said bed can be a toxic place for you where, if left unstirred, you will spend most or all of your time, recuperating from your excruciating self awareness. Today it calls you because of that feeling, and you enter, full on flopping onto the covers and pressing your face in your sweat smelling pillows.

 

You shouldn’t be so upset about what your brother said. It's not like his life is all roses. There’s something distinctly not right about his relationship with Cronus, and you’re starting to feel fed up with letting him sidestep the matter.

 

Even before Kankri crash landed in your life like a bad alien version of The Parent Trap, your personal relationships at home were a lot to handle. You never learned how to hold all these limes. Kankri’s mother is your father’s first baby mother, to whom he’s been married twice. This second time around is going much better than the first, but the bar is frighteningly low. Their first marriage was broken off when you were born by a young undocumented woman your father was unhealthily obsessed with. Your dad then spent years as a renegade leaving his prior wife and having a torrid affair with your mother, who was thirteen years his junior and depended on him for everything. Those are years you can’t remember well even though you try to. For reasons you still don't know, because your father claims he doesn't either, your mother ran off from The Valley without a trace when you were eight. He stayed at their old house, and by the time you were twelve, he was back with his first ex wife again.

 

It wasn’t until their re-reunion that you and Kankri would even learn of each others’ existences.

 

You’d say your father and stepmother argue a lot, but the two of them are hardly ever home anymore. Your dad works until almost nine in Riverside every night as a software developer for Xoracle and Kankri’s mother is a nurse who finds any reason she can to pick up extra shifts or be out of the house. Kankri, who claims to hate “strained claims of domesticity, and seeing my beautiful mother neglected,” is somehow always out, too. The jerk and his appropriated friends.

 

But Bitter is especially your middle name lately because, Terezi, well, let’s just say when she was on top and had a thumb in your affairs? There was nothing you could think to complain about.

 

There were days the two of you just got shitfaced-sugar-high on soda and candy, sat around at the local park at 4 p.m., smoking spliffs on the chipped up swings you used to jump from on grade school class field trips, trying to catch bees. Though she was partially blind in both eyes (at least, before surgery) she caught honeybees professionally to make her line of cannabis based sweet smelling Etsy products. That smelled like a goddamn dream. Not that you ever used them, they were products for girls.

 

Whenever you lie still in bed, the memories of her face and her laughter get to your head. Memories of her you can't get back. A constant reminder of your failures to her and other such inadequacies. You’ll never forget the day she straight up told you she was going on another date with him. It was three days before the start of spring break and she and you were in your bedroom playing Xbox. Well, you were playing, she was not-really-watching and tapping away at her computer for hours. As of that particular moment, she’d been in your bathroom for almost a full hour now. Probably getting it all hotboxed which meant you were going to have to wash the rugs and curtains in there again. Talking in that raspy voice of hers on the phone with who you assumed was just one of her cousins or something.

 

When she finally came out, red glasses covering her eyes, she said something you didn't quite catch.

 

“Wait, what?” You were actively engaged in kicking the virtual shit out of consorts and zombies, getting high as fuck and cursing into your headset. Sitting your unshowered ass in the bean bag chair the way you had the whole weekend.

 

“I said, I’m going to out Raleigh’s with some people,” Terezi repeated. “Since you aren’t ever any fun anymore!”

 

“Terezi — holy fuck, Sollux, can’t you see I’m reloading? Of course I don’t want us to fail this mission, do you know how much grist I got stacked up for this? Give me a goddamn second here.”

 

When you had a moment, you stared up at Terezi and realized your girlfriend got really dressed up for this. She pushed her hair behind her ears, adjusted the waistband on her shiny jeans, when she noticed you noticing her.

 

“I don’t—what?” She was so pretty and you were so selfish,  _shit_ , how did you think this was going to turn out? “Who are you meeting at Raleigh’s?”

 

“Some people from school. Vriska. Feferi. Tavros. Dave.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Hearing her say his name again, spoken so casually, made you feel like you could just curl up and die.

 

“Well, don’t get almost murdered by Vriska like Tavros did that one time,” you said, fixing to put on your headset to block the reality from your dream version of her. “Don’t get caught up in one of Dave’s longwinded clusterfucks.”

 

“Seriously? That’s all you’re going to say? It’s like I’m not even dating you anymore! You don’t care if I go out, you don’t care if I stay here. Do you want me to be with him?”

 

Terezi slammed the door before you could even answer. It was hard to tell her, you thought as you watched her small form retreat into the white car who suddenly came to pick her up from your driveway, that you didn’t want to—or better yet, couldn’t—be mentally present with her lately because of your depression. Depression weight gain and Kankri and his mother moving into your dad’s house and realizing with each passing day that while Terezi was gorgeous and fiery and everything like your best friend, she wasn’t the cure for your sadness.

 

It was even harder to watch Terezi go out with Dave not just the one time, but over and over. You knew things were distant between you and her, you knew your depression was starting to become a problem that needed attention. But you hadn’t expected her to openly flirt with her ex again.

 

You hadn’t even seen the two of them talking lately. Had you? Of course you’d seen him checking her out from a distance in the halls, never gracing either one of your with a ‘sup or hello as you held your arm around her just that little bit tighter. He stared blatant and smug sometimes even, from behind his ridiculous computerized shades, rapping something or other to John. You got it, he and Terezi had been together once—well actually it was more like three times—and of course he stared: she was razor sharp, a sneaky knock out.

 

And guys like Dave were not confined to the average Joe's boundaries. Guys like Dave got good chances handed to them over and over, no matter how many times they broke them—

 

He and Terezi were friends on Snapcrap and Chumbook. You saw the way they liked all of each other’s photos on the surface, but who knows what emojis, selfies and slick, quick replies were shared in invisible sessions. Her date with him and all of his fancy junior friends that apparently she was still in cahoots with, even as she posed as a kiddie freshman outlaw with you, Kanaya and Rose - the thought of those hands of his around her waist - it all crept on your mental security like a nightmare.

 

The first two times she went out with Dave without you, you could safely assume it was a group setting. The third time you asked her, though, her answer was more than you bargained for.

 

“I don’t understand why you’re getting so upset!”  She stood in your kitchen where she’d apparently come to make a fool of you.

 

“Because my girlfriend is going out, alone, with another guy, and not just any guy. The most excruciatingly phony trolling-est-troll to ever grace these premises, to a goddamn bourgeoisie ice cream parlor all the way in Studio City. You seriously don’t think I’d be upset about that?”

 

She didn't say anything, wiping tears from her crimson-lined eyelids. If she hated being around your sad sack so much, why did she still come around you and your dad’s empty household?

 

“Is something going on with him?”

 

She sniffled. “Dave and I kissed two days ago. I'm sorry.”

 

The rest of freshman year, seeing them together as if you had never been tore you apart. So much so that Kanaya and Rose had to practically beg you not to march right up to her and tell her you were desperate, you’d do anything, was it your hair? It was all in your head, the absolute tirade you wanted to go into, all “this isn’t fair” and “why do other people always get to be happy and I don’t.”

 

But time dulled your anger to numbness, and time kept you from chasing after her. She looked happy, happier than she did with you, and the summer you spent without her, never letting her know your regrets, made you realize a lot of things. Things like Dave Strider only keeps girlfriends for a maximum of three months, and by August, Terezi’s official thing with him had slipped its way out of their Instagrub feeds. Her relationship status on Chumbook was single, but rumor had it, things were still going down between them.

 

This was what she wanted.

 

 

♋️

 

 

The midnight hour of 94.4, WBFN roars from your stereo speakers on your nightly commute up to the station. Somehow your dad lets you drive his retired ‘89 Acura - now fitted with a tire - to and fro for work even though, at sixteen years old, your California driver’s permit disallows you to be out alone at this time. You stop at the gas station just before Valley Blvd. turns into the winding, mountainous Ensena Road, pipe down a .50 cent coffee and buy greasy snacks. The fake I.D. you got from Equius’s dark web connect and the three days of stubble you sport on your cheeks right now lets you buy Malboros and cherry flavored swishers. The quiet Chinese man who owns this place has never questioned your late night presence in it.

 

Inside the station, Equius is seated at the console messing with various sliders and Nepeta and Sollux are sitting on the floor passing the bong back and forth. Their laptops and an unfinished Lords of Waterdeep board game lie between them. Grumbling your greeting, to which they just wave, you walk straight at your desk in the rightmost corner, flip open your purple Hustkop computer, and tweak administrative stuff on the Quadrant site like member update notifications, “we’re about to broadcast!” tweets, et cetera.

 

Nep and Sollux are deep in complaints about the state of the CS lab at their underfunded Ensena public school.

 

As they ramble on and on in-joke, you try not to stare at your friends so frighteningly amicably, fondly. Their eyes are getting so red right now. You wish you could be as blasted as them but you can’t get too paranoid when you’re on the air. That was definitely a thing that happened once and you don’t think they'll ever let you live it down.

 

The hours you spend in this warm, familiar, log cabin of an office—the sleepless nights you're here furiously transcribing broadcasts and writing, writing and re-writing new ones in tattered old notebooks—the code you compile and compile it until you break it even worse than it was broken before, and Sollux has to bail you out but not without schooling you first on all the ways in which his hack and life skills are superior—all this trouble you go through is not for nothing. This is a career, not a hobby. You take all the bullshit you can during the day, emo it out and drug it up and do Xbox or homework, until it's finally time to come and be KK: to be a goddamn motherfucking sixteen year old professional, damn it, who's basically an unpaid intern and has to work the graveyard shift and sleeps a grand total of three hours a night, but this experience is going to get you  _so paid_  one day. Then  ~~Terezi~~  all the girls might flock to you instead of Mr. Insincere Strider.

 

Hiding as the bittersweet-talking KK  _has_  given you the chance to be an Anonymous Attractive Person. You don't know what your listeners think you look like and many have some frighteningly hilarious guesses. But no one can exactly peg you, and you like that. On The Quadrant, it doesn’t matter that your black hair is so matted you can’t get a comb through it, your eyes so large, the shadows beneath them make caverns of your cheekbones. It doesn’t matter that Sollux, Nepeta, Equius and you are a bunch of no name brown kids from Ensena. Well, you’re from the Valley, but you’re practically the only family of color on your street, and your dad is in six figures of debt.

 

On The Quadrant, all that matters is your voice. Your style is painfully honest and to the point, but it still draws in kind, authentic conversation.

 

But probably most importantly? This job is a cultural thing for you. You’re not a racist or anything but there’s something particularly salient and rescuing about having other friends who are Latino-Filipino, even if Sollux is only the latter half, and Nepeta and Equius are mostly Indigenous. Family is important, but sometimes you can’t be born into a family that nurtures you. You find comfort knowing there are three other teenagers out there whose parents just let them disappear into the middle of the night for such superfluous projects.

 

Eventually your friends ask you why you seem grumpier than usual tonight, and you explain to them, with as little detail as possible, how Terezi blew your voice up over speakers.

 

“Damn KK, the didn’t have to thcalp you like that.”

 

“I know.”

 

“This doesn't seem like something she would do," says Nepeta. "I always liked GC. The few times you even let her come around! Also she was much better at Waterdeep than Sollux. Sorry!"

 

"Bite me. Thtop, I don't mean literally bite me!" 

 

“Anyway, Karkat, this is like that time Equius tried to do something nice for Aradia!" says Nepeta.

 

"Which time," says Sollux, "the time he failed hellth of fucking mitherably in doing tho? Oh wait, that wath every thime!"

 

"I don't think we should be discussing this, " says Equius.

 

“He made her a lifelike robot in her image, thinking it would be a purr-etty sweet gift for her birthday! But turns out she thought it was purr-etty creepy."

 

"You know that might also have something to do with the fact that it blew up in her fucking face!" you say.

 

"I swear that was never the robot's intention."

 

"I don't see how this relates to me."

 

Equius kind of terrifies you to be honest. Freakish levels of genius, painstakingly loyal. He’s been going out with Nepeta, or at least, remaining chastely her best friend and future boyfriend given their age difference, just about as long as you’ve known her. But he’s always just been really hulking and brooding and strong? Plus his impossibly long, stringy hair is dyed blue and he wears cracked, unreasonably dark sunglasses inside. You also aren’t sure why the twenty year old is so okay with you co-opting his project.

 

“To be truthful,” he said during your first week at the station, “I was dreading having to record a voice component. You’re doing me the udder-most I mean utmost of favors. I owe you my life.”

 

“I’ve seen it, no thanks.”

 

At one thirty, you all start sheepishly shaping up, acting like you have somewhere to be. Equius prepares the stream as Sollux and Nep work up the next security patches, and you spend your designated pre-show half hour as a user of Quadrant. Your username on the boards is ifIhatemyselfsomuchwhydontIhatemarrymyself. As moderator, you’ve allowed yourself to bypass the 20 character name rule. This evening in particular, you join a conversation between three users live-drawing [stick figure cats](https://lh3.ggpht.com/_bChfjNQzX3M/TTQmIwAzVtI/AAAAAAAABpM/HqC4O0a8njI/w700/now_5.gif\)) who are gradually escalating the mass and difficulty of their gymnastic team stunts. Apparently this battle has been raging nonstop in their network, where they have a one hundred and fifty day draw-a-day streak.

 

“Before you go on the air,” Equius says to you now, “I think there’s something you should see.”

 

On his computer he shows you there are forty new listeners in Ensena alone today and thirty two new ones from Valley. You stare at the blinking red lights on the map, too close for comfort, and try to measure just how far away they live from your house. It’s intrusive.

 

“Jesus, will all of you stop looking at me like that?” you say. “It’s fine, I’m not going to let myself be chased off the air by some fourteen year old freshmen who I’m sure heard the broadcast at school and will click off the show in five minutes.”

 

Nepeta, Sollux and Equius all exchange a look as they put on their headphones and begin the countdown. You have to say something about what happened today. Right? Better yet, maybe you don't.

 

Equius holds up three fingers, then two, one…

 

“Good evening, and welcome to this installment of The Quadrant. Whilst dabbling in the little known art form that is ridiculously high stacked ASCII-cats performing coordinated pyramid stunts - with Quadrant user britneyspearscansuckit and her friends, shout out to them - I realized the benefits of step by step, side by side, logically flowing group efforts. Whether they be friendly, romantic, sexual, or drawing-twenty-kittens-power-lifting-other-kittens efforts, there’s a saying: that it takes two, to tango. But what about when it takes two or more?

 

“Who better to find out the answers to this question but from you all, the shippers? Tonight, we’re going to start and end our show with the caller portion. Tonight, you are my stars, and I’d like your insomnia riddled open minds to school me.

 

“Already we can see that we have a few new listeners joining us tonight, so welcome, and, um—CT, TA, what the fuck? Are you seeing this right now?”

 

“I don’t know, man, I’m theething it too.”

 

“That is a lotta-lotta-lotta people,” says Nepeta.

 

“I don’t believe it,” says Equius.

 

Nepeta and Sollux maximize the windows on their desktops showing a live map of viewership. The numbers are skyrocketing hundreds by the second with listeners from all over the east coast and the south. At your desk, you watch in shock as the all ten of the lines on the landline light up and blink in bright green repeatedly, signaling ten simultaneous calls and who on earth knows how many more holding.

 

Your stomach lurches as you try not to relive and imagine the laughter and sniggering faces of the day.

 

“Wow, whoever’s doing this out there right now, thank you?” You’re making frantic, frazzled eye contact with your friends who look just as frantic. “We’re hoping to try to get to as many of you as we can in the hour.”

 

“ _Hi, KK! I’m Roxy, I’m calling from Texas.”_

 

“Roxy from Texas, nice to formally make your acquaintance.”

 

“ _I’m calling because well, first of all, when I saw your show on being parodied on Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff I just_  had  _to take a look at it. But you know what? I went back and listened to some of your archived posts, and I actually really, really like the show! Second, I just wanted to say that I’m in an open relationship with my boyfriend right now, and it is the tits!”_

 

“ _Holla!”_

 

“ _That’s my boyfriend, his name is Vegas.”_

 

“ _As in Vegas, Las Vegas.”_

 

“So Roxy from Texas and Vegas Las Vegas, thank you for the compliments and what is it about your relationship that _really_  makes it work? And wait, hold that thought. Where did you say you found our address?”

 

As Roxy repeats the name of the website slowly, Nepeta and Sollux are on it before you can even mime the word. In seconds they search through several global engines until one of them pulls up the site, begins scrolling down it.

 

Fucking Dave Strider.

 

“Thweeth Bro and Hella Jeff ith a roathting thite at bethth to be honetht," Sollux tells you off the mic. "Thith art lookth like thit!”

 

“Um, Karcatnip? You might want to read what Sweet Bro Hella Jeff said! Or well, drew. I should really give him some lessons!”

 

You can’t read chicken scratch from here, but it’s obvious to you that the screwed up, MS Paint quality blocks on this website are visually his handiwork. You can tell by the intentional high contrast ultra sharpen, deliberate misspellings in neon Comic Sans, and the panels that fall out of sequence, landscapes pouring and spilling out of guidelines, progressions that make absolutely no fucking sense. You’ve seen him drawing these weird looking characters on notebook backs and various wooden desk carvings since he was in grade school.

 

“ _It works because_ _he and I are totally in sync,_ _”_  says Roxy from Texas.You jab a finger across your throat at Nep and Sollux, who really need to keep the showing-you-shit-that-makes-you-pissy-while-you're-on-with-callers thing on the down low.  _“_ _We’_ _re in sync when we’re not even together!”_

 

“How so?”

 

“ _H_ _e always knows what I’m going to want from the vending machine and brings it home before I can even call!_ _It’s not like we’re never going to get jealous, but as long as we talk about it, no one should be able to define what we can and can’t do but ourselves!_ _Don’t you agree?”_

 

“I emphatically and wholeheartedly agree, Roxy. Jealousy is one of those things I can’t wrap my head around logically, like of fucking course a person wants to have their own life and space, and it’s like if we could just stop—the  _feeling_  before it comes, and try to remember that we have brains about ourselves. Maybe we could see our way out of it.”

 

“ _Exactly! You should join Vegas and I sometime, KK.”_

 

“While that offer is more than mildly tempting, I have homework and I'm terrified of Texas on account of I’m a Mexican, and Donald Frump. You guys are great, though.

 

“Next caller, thanks for losing sleep over The Quadrant. To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

 

“ _This Dave Strider and John Egbert -" “Hi!” “ -calling from a city near you.”_

 

Son of a bitch.

 

“Dave, is it? John?” You're trying very hard not to looked freaked out, probably failing. Equius, Sollux and Nepeta frown at you questioningly as you fumble and scramble at your desk for a loose piece of paper and a marker.

 

“It’s nice to meet both of you here for the first time ever in existence. What can I do for you?”

 

“ _We’re here on behalf of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, the Internet’s ultimate provider of quality comics, cheap tricks and lulz. Unfortunately this is a warning that your shit has owned by the SBHJ author and within the next 24 hours, there are no takebacks. No calling Mommy or Daddy if you start seeing double and projectile vomiting in dumb anticipation of what we’re going to do next. If you don’t accept my challenge, my followers and I lay in wait to flood the Quadrant hotline with sick beats and Striderian wisdoms._

 

“ _Now ladies, yours truly is five ten, a buck fifty five, Texan through and through with a crow’s beak where my nose should be and kinda got baby fat goin’ around my ankles, but that’s water under the bridge unless you’re one of those foot fetish people. Not saying there’s anything wrong with liking feet, but wait fuck maybe there is something wrong about feet. I don’t know._

 

“ _Anyway if you think I sound hot, you should take a long hard look at my partner John here. Tall, dark and devastatingly handsome, his beaver teeth are so shiny and large, and he’s so hairy that lately I’ve seen woodland creatures taking up residence in his chest thatch.”_

 

“ _Hey, some people are into that!”_ John chirps.

 

Holy mother of  _fuck._ Your jaw hurts all of a sudden. Even here this tool has managed to find you and the world just really does keep getting smaller. You feel your throat closing up as you scribble HELP ME THESE TROLLS HAVE A DEATH WISH on the paper you found crumbled behind your Hustkop, and wave it in the air at your shrugging friends.

 

“If the two of you spectacularly ineligible bachelors don’t mind?” you say into the mic, as Nepeta and Sollux mouth vague supportive threats towards your virtual assailant. “I’d kind of like to know what these, what did you call them? ‘Striderian wisdoms’? Are and how they relate to me and this program.”

 

“ _Okay listen,”_ Dave says now, all business.  _“I know that you know that I know who you are.”_

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“ _I’m offering you this olive branch of_ _troll_ _friendship but you’re recoiling from it like it’s a ten inch_ _vibrating dildo I’m waving in your face_ _._ _I thought this was what you wanted_ _you sent me and all your other sugar daddies your Amazon wishlist_ _and I_ _triple_ _checked_ _it but_ _you’re like_ _,_ _no stop,_ _I said six inches max._

 

“ _Speaking of things in people’s faces, wanna check out this prank my Bro’s been doing lately?”_

 

“No.”

 

“ _Cool listen to this.”_

 

[A track from a hastily recorded YouTube video](https://streamable.com/59t0) starts playing in your headset.

 

“ _Get your camera out of my f**king face.”_

 

“ _Oh, you think it’s too dirty? TV’s too dirty? For the children? Are those your thoughts? But we’re—we’re doing it for the children.”_

 

“ _Why you got the camera on me, sir?”_

 

“ _We’re trying to learn it for the kids.”_

 

“ _What are you trying to learn?”_

 

“ _Well why are you following the camera around, that’s what I don’t understand - ”_

 

“ _You’ve got the camera in my f**king face!”_

 

“ _Well you wanna be on it, it seems like. I just want to get your opinion, for the children.”_

 

“ _Please, I’m begging you nicely, get the camera out of my face.”_

 

“ _Okay but you’re. You’re following the camera. See what you’re doing? Do you notice that you’re moving towards the camera?”_

 

“ _Move the camera away -”_

 

“ _But you see how you. The camera is moving somewhere and you’re being attracted t_ o _the camera. Your body is being magnetically attracted towards the camera you are verbally attempting to repel. You notice that?”_

 

“ _This is a f**king violation of privacy - ”_

 

“ _But let’s discuss the contradiction -"_

 

“ _Take the camera away from my face!”_

 

“ _But we’re just walking around the park minding our own business!”_

 

“ _You’ve got your camera up in my mouth!”_

 

“ _Your mouth is faced towards the camera. You’re consciously choosing. You’re consciously making a conscious choice to talk towards my camera. Did you notice that?”_

 

“ _[inaudible expletives].”_

 

_“Will you please, I’m begging, I’m asking you nicely to please, turn your face away from my camera! Please don’t point that face at my camera! You’re breaking the camera!”_

 

This is farce is becoming too ridiculous. Nepeta, Sollux and Equius are doing what they can, but they’re all stupid stuck on the rapidly climbing numbers and increase in traffic on the servers. The hits on the site are up to 100,000. 15,000 streaming live.

 

You try not imagine that many actual, human faces watching _you._

 

“ _Oh man, if you could see this video right now.”_ Dave's laughter is infectious and you hate yourself for thinking it. “ _This dude gets so_ _belligerent,_ _I lose it every time_ _.”_

 

“You know, Dave, I don’t know what 4chan-recesses of the Internet you crawled out from but it’s been a blast having you with us tonight.” From his desk Sollux rejects that sentiment by sticking both his middle fingers up. “Really, it has.”

 

“ _I like doing this with you too, KK. Y’know, I think we’ve got a real good thing going here, good vibes. Kinda know what I feel like doing, Johnny?”_

 

“ _Nope, can’t say that I do!”_

 

“Jesus, you’re still on the call?”

 

“ _I think it’s time to lay down some law, and by law I mean music and lyrics_.”

 

No, no, God, no.

 

“ _I’m going to lay_ _it_ _down so_ _tender_ _,”_ says Dave, “ _like it’s my son and I’m a single_ _dad_ _working nights at a bar. I sneak in to kiss little_ _Jimm_ _y_ _every night before I go_ _,_ _k_ _iss him_ _sof_ _tl_ _y_ _on the_ _fore_ _head, t_ _ell him_ _M_ _oms_ _went out for a_ _pack of_ _cigarette_ _s,_ _never came back._ _T_ _uck him in_ _all_ _sentimental_ _like._ _”_

 

“No, no, there will be no Eight Miles of rapping on my sacred goddamn show.” A ragtime-y hip hop beat begins to play. “Is that a fucking piano I hear?”

 

“ _That would be me!”_  John supplies.

 

“ _Johnny G is sick on them keys.”_

 

“If both of you don’t stop this white nonsense right the fuck now I’ll be blocking you permanently here and in real life.”

 

Dave then proceeds to have one of the worst rap battles in history, with himself.

 

“ _Though Dave may ring like a silver bell / And John softer like music claim / They can’t work the miracle / ‘Tis Karkat sets my heart a-flame.”_

 

As Dave and John alternate this chorus, the vein on your forehead thwacks beneath your skin to the beat.

 

“ _It’s Stri-dizzy from the big L.A. / And I’m calling in tonight ‘cause I got something to say / Trying to school my brother Karkat about getting laid / I seen this dude in real life, man, he gets no play / J-Eggy on the beat and that is fact / Who you heard saying white boys don’t know how to rap? / Heard your last girl been begging me to swing that bat / Yo, Johnny, did you hear that clap?”_

 

“ _Yeah I heard that clap!”_

 

“ _Can you work with that?”_

 

“ _I can work with that!”_

 

**\- click -**

 

_beep—beep—beep—_

 

“This, ladies and gentleman and all in between, is why human reproduction and what kind of person you’re going to bring into the wretched world some day are actually important things to think about. Imagine knowing you were personally responsible for all of us having to hear that just now.

 

“...All 19,000 of us?”

 

Nepeta, Sollux and Equius are now scrambling to handle the increase of requests to the server. Sure, you’re the entertainment, but when shit hits the fan? You’re just sitting there, sweating underneath your big headphones, watching your friends rapidly type and expel things, drown. You wonder why they care, why any of this is worth it.

 

“Oh look, our switchboard and phone lines are flying off the handle again,” you say. “For those of you that don’t know, our program is a small and community funded effort by PBS and others to conserve Ensena county, and basically we run a four man gig out of a shanty fucking shack with antennas on it. I don’t know how many fake calls and hits and trolls you guys have generated but whatever point you’re trying to make in the grand scheme of things? Message not read or received! Let’s have some fun.”

 

You relieve the wild phones until your energy is wasted.

 

The live stream message board, displayed on the back wall by Equius’s projector, reads as follows:

 

02:46:10 wheredoingthisman1 said  _How come no one is answering my calls???_  
02:46:17 lambcurrywiththeshot said  _You are being so classy KK. F***these haters!_  
02:46:27 murdermelikeselena said  _They are relly roasting your ass lmfao charr broiling you bro_  
_02:46:35_ fatnastytrashgirl777 said  _Say more abt open relationships!!! Ur so funny!! Luv u! <333  
__02:46:56_ justmadethis2comment said  _So glad SBHJ woke me up 4 this. Hav no idea wats going on rn m8 but its f**ing hilarious_

 

 

♋️

 

 

The shipping wall, SBHJ fans galore, has been updated thousands of times tonight. With depictions such as Roxy and Vegas’s joint wedding to a cute crabby crab and Dave and John ruling over Earth as merciless rap gods, sporting Rick Ross beards and heavy gold chains and smiting the masses with their wicked flows. Also dicks. Lots of dicks.

 

At 2:59 a.m., you give one last send-off after managing to keep the last thirteen minutes of your broadcast relatively free of Dave (but not free of the cesspool of human traffic that make up his blogs’ audience). Several minutes later, you creep over the shoulders of Nep, Sol and Equius and stare into their monitors blankly, as they do fast analytics and damage control.

 

“I’m sure my boss will be calling about the increase,” says Equius. “You’ve made a popular enemy.”

 

“Yeah theriouthly KK, I don’t know who thith obnothious athole ith but he’th got more followerth than all of uth could pothibly dream of. At leatht half the new utherth he thent uth are junk accounth, but I don't even care.”

 

Nepeta takes a break from her mining of data and her big heart-shaped eyes, bloodshot and gunning with sympathy, rest upon on your tired face.

 

“Was that guy one of the mean ones from school?”

 

“He’s nothing and means nothing. Thanks all of you, once again and always, for temporarily making my life feel like somewhat less of a trainwreck. Let’s recap this in a couple of hours. I’ll set up the memo.”

 

“You thure, KK?”

 

“Yeah. I think I just wanna go to bed.”

 

When you get home, your phone connects to your Wifi and Pesterchum updates. You have several messages from Kanaya that you barely have the energy to read right now; your body is tired, but your caffeine riddled mind is awake with terrors.

 

Exhausted, you crawl into bed with your phone in hand, reading:

 

grimAuxillatrix began pestering carcinoGeneticist at 02:11:13 

 

GA: Oh

GA: Oh God

GA: It Appears You Have Been

GA: If It Makes You Feel Any Better Rose And I Are Currently Arranging The Funerals For

GA: Did He Just Say Your First Name

GA: Why Is He Rapping

 

This wouldn’t matter if your school and these people weren’t all you really knew. Strangers across the world, though they say that they’re there, are truly just hits, pixels, clicks and statistics.

 

Just words.

 

Tomorrow, in the real world, you’ll have to face the music.

 

GA: I Know You Probably Dont Like Me Saying This But An Outcome Like This Was At Some Point Inevitable Irrespective Of Your Cautious Clever Misnomer

GA: People Suck

GA: I Love You

 

grimAuxillatrix ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist at 02:59:17 

 

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering grimAuxillatrix at 04:23:15 

 

CG: LOVE YOU TOO

 

carcinoGeneticist ceased pestering grimAuxillatrix at 04:24:00 

 

 

♋️

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please watch [the video](https://streamable.com/59t0).


	3. Chapter 3

 

 _I'm just trying to make my way on_  
_Through the concrete jungle_  
_Who walks with me?_  
_T_ _ryna find connection in_  
_T_ _wo-thousand something ain't easy_  
_C_ _an't quit, take sips_  
_Wanna taste you_  
_M_ _ake wish, use lips_   _  
__Kissing strangers ‘til I find someone I love_

– DNCE, “[Kissing Strangers”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myaN5jTh79o)

 

 

♋️

 

 

The aforementioned music you have to face this morning is not quite as trying as you thought it would be, but that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t piss you off.

 

Dave is looking right at you when you walk into the quad before class starts in the morning. In all his years he’s managed to practically never make eye contact with you or with any underclassman that isn’t from behind his hi tech Spectacles, so you might be freaking out a little.

 

Okay, a fucking lot.

 

Glasses pushed up on his head, his ruddy crimson eyes are boring holes you into from across the way as you throw your heavy backpack down at your L-shaped table, turn up your music a bit louder. Around him, his friends and other acquaintances are crowding and herding, and he’s at the center of it all. Today is Friday, and you hate Fridays, especially in September. They are especially annoying because they are pep rally days. It’s Labor Day weekend, the first game of the season, and you seriously do not understand the fucking appeal and draw of the pep rally. Why the administration loves wasting time you could be in classes or doing literally anything else more productive than watching a bunch of your sweaty peers bash cylinders and scream “GO TEAM!” By virtue of being the richest motherfucker alive, Dave is in with the football team. Plus, his butt buddy John is the Varsity kicker.

 

He doesn’t seem to be particularly talking about you to the people around him, his  ~~perfect~~  mouth moving to rap to John, but all the while, he’s staring into your eyes.

 

Smiling slightly, as if daring you to challenge him on it.

 

You test this theory by getting up and tossing the trash from your morning snack near the dish return, find his gaze follow you there and back like a hawk. It was one thing battling with him over airwaves, the brashness of your voice and your ability to garner a following giving you the clout to hold your own. But here, in the real world, in front of him? Dave is one of the best looking humans you’ve ever seen in real life and you only mean that fucking objectively. Subjectively, there’s no protocol for the way his devilish smirk makes your stomach twist itself into a knot.

 

As the first bell shrieks and you scurry, head down, to your homeroom, you think about something. You’ve always looked at Dave. It’s just before, he was never looking back. To be fair though, everyone stared when you were all kids, because his moderate albinism – and the bleeding eyes that went with it – made him a corporal rarity, a specimen.

 

What you never understood was why Dave was worshiped for his odd looks while you were often ridiculed for yours. In the fourth grade, Cronus and Eridan started Karnkles because of your weight, and Tubs because of it and your height, or lack thereof.

 

“Can I ask you something?” A little fourth grade you approached David in the hall one time, wondering if maybe you two physical outliers could be friends. “Why do you cover your eyes so much?”

 

“How do you get by as a midget at this school without special accommodations?” When you pouted at this response, he held up his hands, said blandly, “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being a midget bro, I am genuinely concerned.”

 

Later, you would learn (from overhearing him talk) that his eyes were especially sensitive to light, but it’s not like you knew that when you asked him. Sheesh.

 

At graduation and promotion that same late spring, you watched from afar with your single father and cheap, wrinkled dress clothes as the Strider patriarch took photos of his ilk – Dirk, who was graduating from middle school, and Dave, who’d just been promoted to seventh and won a national prize in the science fair – with a ridiculously expensive camera. They looked so goofy and carefree, posing like gangsters on purpose. You wondered what their life was like.

 

Back in the present, it's just after the bell rings to start lunch when Tavros rolls up to you in the hall in front of your locker. You haven’t talked to Vriska’s childish, good looking Cambodian beau one-on-one since before his accident. That was almost four years ago.

 

“Hi.”

 

“Hi?”

 

“I just wanted to say, this is what happened, when they chose me.”

 

“What?” He was cute but mindnumbingly cryptic. “When who chose what?”

 

“John and Dave.”

 

Tavros sticks his meaty hands to the sides of his wheels, anxiously averts his gaze. You realize the unease and restlessness you’re feeling from this unearned social interaction right now? Totally mutual. What is he trying to be an ally?

 

“I heard, uh, their show, last night,” says the bumbling junior. “A lot of us, actually, listened to it, at Peixes’ house.”

 

“God, that is so fucking fantastic, Tavros, I just _love_  hearing that. Did you guys paint each other’s toenails and read horoscopes too?”

 

“I don’t think painting toenails collectively is, a thing mixed gender people our age like to do.”

 

“No shit!”

 

“Anyway I, just wanted you to know, they don’t mean, the things they say.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“I’m not just, saying that because I’m their errand boy or something.”

 

“I don’t believe that for several reasons, one of them being the fact that I find your judgment and overall perception of the world around you to be severely fucking impaired, not because of the fact that you’re  _in_ a wheelchair, but because you’re dating the maniacal sociopath who put you in it!”

 

You think Tavros will be pissed at you for saying this (if the guy even knows what anger is), but instead he smiles.

 

“Vriska’s, not all that bad, once you get to know her. Maybe it’s, that way, with you too.”

 

Kanaya and Rose walk by in tandem as you’re taking your speechless leave from him.

 

“Kanaya, this is unsettling.”

 

“What is?”

 

“Nitram came up to me for the first time in years and told me ‘I might be nicer if people got to know me.’ What kind of after school special ass horse defecation is that? He also compared me to Vriska which for reasons I don’t need to explain to you, you were there you saw her push him in front of it, I resent monu-fucking-mentally!’’

 

The three of you shuffle through your usual lunch line, but you aren’t eating, at least not now. First, you have business to attend to: Nepeta, Sollux, Equius and you have a virtual meeting planned on your tablet.

 

 

CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] at 11:09:11 opened private bulletin board TEAM ADORABLOODTHIRSTY.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CCG at 011:09:40 opened memo on board TEAM ADORABLOODTHIRSTY.

CURRENT arsenicCatnip [CAC] at 11:10:59 responded to the memo.

CAC: :33 < *ac brings cg his favorite powdered donut holes from the hole mole in ensena*

CAC: :33 < *she thinks this will ch33r him up, and she hopes it does, because she wants pets!*

CCG: OH COME ON, NOW REAL LIFE ME IS CRAVING THE HOLES SO MUCH MY MOUTH IS WATERING.

CURRENT twinArmageddons [CTA] at 11:11:41 responded to the memo.

CTA: kk 2o glad two 2ee you’re thiinkiing about a22 thii2 early iin the day

CCG: SHUT THE FUCK UP

CCG: I WILL BAN YOU FROM THIS MEMO SO HARD, AND NO, THAT IS NOT FUCKING INNUENDO.

CTA: lol plea2e you need me iin thii2 chat, ii have all the number2 and 2tatii2tiics, plu2 your 2iite would be the mo2t puke iinduciing me22ed up excu2e for PHP wiithout me nep and eq

CAC: :33 < *ac snuggles up in betw33n cg and ta to get them to stop fighting!*

CAC: :33 < *she waves her big fluffy tail in her furends faces because she still has not received pets* (^._.^)

CURRENT centaursTesticle [CCT] at 11:13:22 responded to the memo.

CCT: D --> If it pleases my liege, I am here with the sole purpose of petting her

CAC: :** < ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ <33

CCG: I’M GOING TO STOP BOTH OF YOU RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW BEFORE YOU SMOTHER US TO DEATH WITH YOUR MUSHY MONOGAMOUS FOLLY.

CCG: LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS, SHALL WE?

CTA: 2o fiir2t of all here are the number2 from la2t night2 2how

 _CTA attached file_ 2ept_4th_quadrant_2ux.xls

 

He and Equius detail average time spent on thequadrant.com, average number of live users on the shipping wall per hour, hits to the archives, user logins per hour, how long they stay on, what activities they flocked to, from which urls they were referred, et cetera.

 

CCG: I JUST DON’T EVEN KNOW IF ALL THESE NEW PEOPLE ARE OUR TARGET AUDIENCE.

CCG: I MEAN SERIOUSLY, DAVE COULD’VE PICKED THE MOST FUCKED UP DEMOGRAPHIC ON THE PLANET AND FORCED THEM TO SWARM ON US.

CAC: :33 < *ac is wondering when cg is going to tell us more about this dave purrson!*

CCG: THE FLIGHTY HUMAN CALLED DAVE IS NONE OF MY CONCERN AND SHOULDN’T BE ANY OF YOURS.

CCG: FRANKLY HE WAS JUST THE SNOW THAT GOT THE BALL ROLLING.

CCG: HIS PRANK CALLS WEREN’T EVEN THAT GOOD, I FORGOT MOST OF WHAT HE BABBLED ON ABOUT BY THE TIME MY HEAD HIT THE LAY SACK.

CCG: SO THE WAY I SEE IT, THERE ARE TWO OPTIONS HERE. ONE, WE RECOIL FROM OUR SUDDEN EXPOSURE TO POTENTIALLY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF UNKNOWN PERVERTS AND PUT OURSELVES ON SOMETHING LIKE HIATUS UNTIL THIS DIES DOWN. OR TWO, WE RIDE THIS FREE PUBLICITY TRAIN LIKE HOODED BANDITS INTO THE MOTHERFUCKING SUNSET.

CCT: D --> How e%actly hypothetically would we ride it

CCG: IF THIS IS YOUR WAY OF ASKING WHY I CALLED IT A TRAIN INSTEAD OF A HORSE, I HATE YOU.

CCT: D --> No I mean

CCT: D --> Now that you mention it horse would have been a much STRONGER word choice

CCT: D --> But unfortunately hiatus is not an option for me

CCT: D --> My entire grade and future career depend on my produ%ion of a sm00th, consistent, and considerable late night show

CTA: and you deciide two tru2t three braiindead iidiiot 2toner teenager2 wiith iit? lmao

CCT: D --> For you all, this can end when you want it to. I don’t blame you Karkat if it beh00ves you to leave this all behind, for privacy’s sake

CAC: X33 < behooves!

CCG: LOOK AS MUCH AS I WANT TO RUN AWAY FROM THIS SHIT?

CCG: I CAN’T

CCG: IT’S TOO FAR GONE AND I’VE INVESTED TOO MUCH, AND HONESTLY EQUIUS YOU’VE DONE TOO MUCH FOR ME.

CCG: SO I DON’T KNOW, I GUESS WE JUST ROLL WITH THIS?

CAC: 833 < *ac takes the anxieties cg was just f33ling and rolls them into a fat tasty blunt*

CAC: 833 < * ()__)____________))))) *

CAC: 833 < *she wants gr33ns because it was her idea, but she loves cg so much, she will let him have them!*

CTA: ehehehehehe, he fucking need2 iit two

CCG: WHILE I APPRECIATE THE VIRTUAL SENTIMENT AND YES I REALLY COULD USE A JOINT RIGHT NOW, BUT ALAS, I'M TOO MUCH OF A WIMP TO SMOKE AT MY OWN SCHOOL, WE NEED TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT WHAT OUR NEXT MOVES ARE IF EVEN A FRACTION OF THE PEOPLE FROM LAST NIGHT RETURN.

CCG: I DON’T HAVE THE SINGLE HANDED MEANS TO HANDLE THE BACKLOG OF SHIPPING WALL DRAWINGS NEEDING APPROVAL, OR THE MESSAGES CAUGHT IN THE FORUM SPAM FILTER.

CCG: AND THOLLUX I KNOW YOU'RE BATSHIT CRAZY GOOD AT COMPUTERS, BUT YOU WILL NEED HELP WITH THE SERVER

CTA: roger captaiin obviiou2

CAC: :33 < I have no problem coming on as forum co-moderator!

CCT: D --> We can also greatly improve the algorithm that dete%s spam to move things along

CCT: D --> As well as bulking our firewalls, adding a few more domains to disperse traffic

CCT: D --> Increasing bandwidth and memory on the server

CTA: 2ure that all 2OUND2 niice and all but where the hell are we 2uppo2ed to get the money to upgrade our 2erver???

CAC: :33 < will the station help us out you think bb?

CTA: D --> I doubt it

CTA: D --> They are already low on funds, and they already let me use their e%pensive broadcast equipment

CTA: D --> The program is mandatory. The website is extra

CCG: I’M A GENIUS. WE COULD SELL AN APP.

CCG: GRANTED ENOUGH PEOPLE WOULD EVEN WANT TO DOWNLOAD IT.

CTA: ii thought the poiint of thii2 wa2 two NOT be liike ciindr or 2cumbook

CCG: YEAH BUT WE CAN’T OPERATE LIKE WE DID LAST NIGHT ALL OVER AGAIN.

CCG: I KNOW WE TALK A LOT OF SHIT ON WHATPUMPKIN, BUT THEY HAVE MONEY, AND WE HAVE NOTHING.

CCG: AND BITCHES LOVE APPS.

CCG: LETS JUST

CCG: SEE HOW WE DO TONIGHT, ALRIGHT?

 

After a few more charged ins and outs, you and your friends sign off. Just as you’re about to take a bite of your now-cold corn dog, you stop, mouth agape, as you see Dave, shades donned, standing right in front of your table.

 

“’Sup, killers?” There’s some kind of skateboarding video running in the rightmost corners of the glasses, and really, how the fuck does he see with those things on? “How goes things?”

 

“Dave,” Rose says. “Your word choices are evocative as usual.”

 

“Aw, thanks.”

 

He digs into his back pocket and pulls out three small wrinkled red fliers, bearing none other than the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff icons you recognize from that trash ass website last night. They are also riddled with ridiculous, obscene, horrifically obfuscated Spongebob memes, and the title, Under The Sea(Weed).

 

“Annual BTS party,” Dave says, handing you one each. “Dirk and Jake are still around so it’s gonna be a rager.”

 

It will not have been the first time you’ve been to the glamorous Strider estate, but you don’t like to think about that.

 

“Is this a fucking joke?” you say.

 

“Is what a fucking joke?” he says.

 

“Why would I spend my hard earned time, energy and gas to go to another one of your wasteful ass shindigs, when you want nothing to do with me unless it’s pissing around hiding behind a fucking computer?”

 

“Wow dude, you are really paranoid.”

 

Kanaya must feel you practically overflowing lava beside her.

 

“What Karkat seems to be trying to convey is, well, you haven’t invited us over to your house since we were thirteen.”

 

“You guys are sophomores now, I think that makes you less inclined to treat my Bro’s house like a kiddie Magic City. Just don’t puke in any of our palm plants, do any cocaine or steal any of my brother’s weird sex puppets, only for your parents to find them stashed behind your headboard and end up calling  _my_  parent, and trust me, neither you nor them wanna know what my Bro does with those puppets.”

 

None of you can think to give his chatty invitation much else but silence. You’re putting on a big show about visibly sulking and acting uninterested, but then Dave slips his sunglasses up and off his face, into his consummate, golden locks.

 

“I’m serious, y’all. We have a lot of fun.” His pale lashes flutter all butterfly-like and it makes you sick. “Come be a part of it, if you end up thinking about it.”

 

Just like Terezi a day ago, Dave is acting like you should just laugh this whole thing off, like he did you a favor last night.

 

You watch across the quad as Terezi talks hush hush with John off to the side of their rowdy lunch group. When Dave returns to their vicinity, fistbumping Meenah, you notice that Terezi and Dave exchange a look, but don’t approach each other. Terezi’s cutting her eyes at him sourly and eavesdropping as fuck on she and Egbert you wish you were, but sadly, you are in this great divide.

 

“ _Are_ you thinking about going?” says Kanaya, who you know is watching you stare at them.

 

“It’s not fair,” you hear yourself saying before you can manage it. “He can’t just act like that was nothing last night! I have to get back at him.”

 

“Why don’t you ask him why he did it?” says Rose.

 

“Because that’s what he wants. He wants me to cower and spill my hurt feelings and hem and haw at his godlike mercy and his six hundred dollar rapper-promoted sneakers. I’m tired of being backed into corners by someone who’s not even man enough to face me IRL!”

 

“So, we’re going then?” says Kanaya.

 

You stare down at the flyer, the promise of booze and the knowledge you have about his lifestyle; it’d be fucked up, but there would be alcohol.

 

Plus Kankri would be salty that you got invited this year, and you love that.

 

Maybe Terezi even would be, too.

 

“I’m thinking about it.”

 

 

♋️

 

 

At the end of the school day (and after the pep rally, which was as horrible as expected), Terezi walks up to you in the hall.

 

“Hi.”

 

“...Hello.”

 

You haven’t seen her eyes since the procedure. You can see the scarring, the places where her skin bubbles and crinkles, but god, she has glorious, full dark pupils, and the shape of her eyelids - you can’t, you can’t handle this.

 

“What?” you say, somewhat blistering, because she’s just staring at you, and hasn’t said anything.

 

“Nothing, it’s just, I can really see your face now. Your hair really isn’t all that bad!”

 

You try to find it in you to say something amicable, to appease the part of you that just wants to jump up and down and hug her because  _she can see,_ but it doesn’t work out. Within seconds the argument flows past your lips, because every time you see her, you remember that she lied.

 

“Are you done, Terezi?”

 

“Done? What are you talking about?”

 

“You really didn’t have to sic Dave on me like that. It was immature, and I get it, he’s cooler and has more blogs than me and better moves in your hypothetical sheets than I ever will.”

 

“Oh, please!” Terezi is actually laughing at you. “I did not tell him to troll you. If I had known he was planning that, I would have told him to leave you alone, and that prank calls are lame and outdated. Dave does whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”

 

“Including you, huh?”

 

“Goodbye, Karkat.”

 

Rightly insulted, she takes her leave, back down the hall from whence she came.

 

“Terezi, wait.”

 

You say it long after she’s gone.

 

 

♋️

 

 

A long time ago, but not that long, Kanaya was helplessly in love with the rather abrasive Vriska Serket. At the start of the sixth grade, you and your road dog Kan were equally lovesick, her over the most likely heterosexual Vriska, and somehow, you were jealously pining over Terezi and Dave both.

 

That year, Rose was a brand new transfer student. She had befriended Kanaya in one of her classes on the first day due to a mutual interest in vampiric literature, but not had yet made her lesbian move. On the third day of school, Dave walked up to the three of you unwarranted to hand you a flyer for his party, the first one of Dave’s back to school’s you'd ever been invited to. Said Dirk wasn’t going to be there, so it’d just be a middle school party, but it’d be “dope anyway.” Said he invited Rose in particular “because she’s the new girl and probably needs friends who aren’t goth.”

 

“Fuck you, Kanaya and I are not ‘goth.’ It’s called ‘scene.’ Learn some culture, you boring idiot.”

 

The Striderian mansion, to put it modestly, is fucking insane: seven bedrooms, three stories, marble pillars stretching all around it, seated at the very top of the gated Vellano Estates neighborhood. Folks say other places like theirs, though there is not one like that of Bro Strider’s, sell for a whopping twenty five million. The party that year was being held in what the robot maid referred to as “the den” when it gave you and Kanaya directions on the way in. It was a glorified, granted fucking huge, basement, complete with bean bag chairs, a ninety inch flat screen, every video game console known to man, every kid’s paradise; there were wine coolers and beer and even a small glass pipe going around. You and Kanaya were sitting on top of the expensive washer and dryer combo along the back wall together, away from everyone else, with your watered down cups of rum and sprite. You both hated drinking back then and secretly pretended to do it to look cool together in front of people like Nepeta, Sollux, Equius, and now apparently Rose, your shared friends. Besides, Kanaya’s mother had dropped you two off here, and if she knew you were drinking, you’d be smited by God first, and then her. Kanaya was from a well meaning but hypocritical Catholic family too.

 

Rose was currently engaged in longwinded conversation with Terezi about something, and already, just three weeks in town, she was managing to swoop in on Dave Strider’s girlfriend. That was something You Did Not Do, you remarked to yourself jealously. Dave and Terezi were going out a second time, and back then, Dave never seemed to care about you one way or the other. He and John and Tavros and Gamzee were all so cool, especially masculine and laid-back and loved no matter what they did; always had girls around them, always the best at sports and music and clubs and shit. You thought you had none of that.

 

On the other side of the room, Vriska and Tavros were sloppily making out as some of their friends nearby cheered.

 

“I’m voting for Tavros for homecoming prince ‘cause he got pushed in front of that bus!” someone shouted.

 

“I’m voting for Vriska ‘cause she pushed him!”

 

“I just can’t believe that she’s so straight and I’m so gay,” Kanaya said by your side.

 

“Well at least you know this Rose girl is at least partially yonically inclined. Or are her Doc Martens and completely unsubtle quips about your beauty _not_ waving red flags? When are you going to ask her on a date, or maybe to marry you?”

 

Now Terezi and Dave were dancing across the way. You watched how Terezi’s little hands slipped into the backs of Dave’s pockets, and Dave’s ass was so round, not that you stared at it every time you saw him. But it was just that he wore those jeans that made it protrude and Jesus fuck you really needed to spend less time on r/gayporn. You didn’t  _know_  why you liked watching it, okay? It wasn’t that you wanted to be in Dave’s pants, it was that you wondered what it felt like to be him, in that moment, feeling her pants.

 

What it felt like to be her, maybe, too.

 

In the end, you and your best friend made a promise.

 

“Let’s never end up at another one of these shindigs with these assholes," you'd said to her. "Got it?”

 

“Agreed.”

 

Yet here you are tonight with these assholes.

 

 

♋️

 

 

Hours after school, during the stretch between six and nine, you smoke several (too many) bowls and contemplate whether or not you should seriously go to this party. High you decides that you would also like to be drunk you because fuck it, it’s Friday night and you have a hard life. You've since developed a love of mind numbing substances because of it. You decide you aren’t going to dress up much for this, throwing on a dark gray hoodie and one of your nicer pairs of jeans. Do something to your hair for once, put conditioner on the ends of your curls to make them look springy.

 

Somehow, tonight, your reflection doesn’t terrify you nearly as much as usual. Your depression weight is back down after losing the thirty pounds you gained because of Zoloft last spring. Who knew Terezi dumping you (and you dumping some of those pills) would make you lose your appetite? The pills now stay unopened for months on end; you’d exchange hypothetical mental stability for the ability to look somewhat like a slender human male again.

 

You were planning on driving to the party, but apparently Kankri is taking your Acura.

 

“What? Why?” You stare at him like he has two heads as he stands in front of the garage door with your car keys in his hands. “Why don’t you just use your car?”

 

“I don’t want to waste the gas.”

 

“Wow. Are you fucking with me? You’re fucking with me.”

 

“Watch your language, please. And your noise. My mother is asleep.”

 

You roll your eyes laboriously to let him know how sorry you are.

 

“Let me use your car then,” you say. “I’ll put the gas back and then some. Or give me a ride.”

 

“I’m not giving my kid brother a ride to  _my_  friend’s party.”

 

Upon arrival to the party, you realize it’s because he had to pick Cronus up.

 

You, Kanaya and Rose meet at Cherrywood park, equidistant from all three of your houses, and walk the twenty minutes it takes to travel up the steep hill to the Vellano Estates (on the back of the flier was a guest gate code for entry). All three of you walk into the glarmous, dim lit, marble-covered foyer that is the front of this mansion and are greeted by [ferociously loud and upbeat music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzZWXrlDj-A), strobe lights dancing fast across your faces. Wide eyed staring at the cacophony of party, you find almost all the juniors and seniors who matter thrumming through this crowd, as well as many of the freshly graduated college kids, friends and company of Dirk and Jake. On your left, Kankri and some of his closer friends – Porrim, Aranea, Meenah, and Cronus – are grouped up by the spiral staircase a few feet from the door. When your shifty brother sees you approaching, he turns away from you suddenly, showing you the back of his too big sweater; but Porrim, Cronus, Aranea, and Meenah all turn their heads in tandem at what he’s ashamed of: you. Suddenly they’re all making moves to crowd around and clown him, teasing and shouting, and then they drag him with them in order to come and greet you.

 

“Well if it isn’t shouty-shouts.” Meenah is grinning brilliantly at you, the beads and gold in her braids a jingling delight. You have always secretly thought she was crazy hot. “We don’t know why it took us so glubbin’ long to realize if you’re Kan’s bro, you’re family!”

 

“Meenah’s only saying that because she  _just_  heard your show,” says Aranea, lighthearted teasing; everyone knows they’re girlfriends. “She’s a total fake.”

 

Cronus, who is lucky student body prez Meenah is his cousin, sucks his teeth, rolls his eyes, as Aranea hugs her.

 

“All that lesbian shit in my face, it’s bad enough I can’t get laid or get a date until five tries or more in the Valley, why do all the hot girls have to be carpet cleaning?”

 

“Even if Aranea  _was_ straight, she wouldn’t tap your ass with a six foot pole!” Meenah says.

 

Porrim wraps her thin tattooed arms around your brother’s waist.

 

"Why haven't you ever formally introduced us, Kanny?” she says, pushing his hair out of his face. “He's so  _cute._ "

 

"Porrim, please don't hit on my brother in front of me,” but Kankri’s not making any real moves to push her off of him, and you’re blushing furiously watching them stand so close to each other. He’s so awkward and stiff, like a hanger for her to drape on, how can he let someone who looks like her just _drape_ on him? “He looks exactly like me? I mean, kind of obviously? The thought of dating you is a strange and offputting idea. I might be the only person at this high school who hasn't revolved through your chambers."

 

Porrim responds to this by releasing her grasp on him and splashing him in the face with the liquor and rocks from her cup. Cronus, Meenah and others nearby jeer as Kankri recoils and shivers aggressively.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Porrim, why?”

 

Porrim smiles, wicked, and absconds as Kankri wails on and on to Cronus, who often appeared by his side out of no where, about how this was a two hundred dollar sweater his mother just bought him. Cronus makes no hesitation in helping Kankri dry off, finding any way he can to run his hands over the soaked, sticky wool as they stumble to a corner.

 

You can’t handle this symphony sober.

 

As the hyper crowded party rolls on, you avoid your painfully regressive brother by scowling in a corner with beer/vodka, Rose, and Kanaya, those two drinking, giggling, adorable harpies. Attached at the wrist and the hip as usual, they both sport black lipstick and lacy skirts. Overdressed, but probably still less out of place than you are at this thing.

 

The center of the party takes place in the massive and glamorous Strider living room, where you unfortunately are to be close to the liquor tables. It’s impossible not to make eyes at the hosts, seated and drinking on an extraordinary round couch that circles a golden coffee table: Dave, John, and their consorts, Vriska, Tavros, Gamzee, Eridan, Feferi and other usual rotating seniors, plus graduates like Jane Crocker and Calliope, all right next to the DJ booth where Dirk is Macbook-spinning, and Jake is grinding in his tattoo laden arms rather obscenely. Dirk is all about the molly music rave scene and is Instagrub famous for he and Jake’s get ups for them, usually tight shorts, garters, and candy bralettes.

 

Eventually you have your third (fourth?) drink and… oh, the blur around your vision is becoming A Problem, the burning in the gut of your belly won’t quit. Sweat starts to coat your forehead and you can’t say you’re starting to mind the blunt numbness to your head, the shared body heat, and the visual of the throng of slim teenage bodies swaying to and fro. You are however becoming increasingly annoyed by how impressed Rose and Kanaya are by your brother's friends. Well, mostly Porrim, who they once deemed "womanist goddess."

 

“You should go talk to her, babe.”

 

“Rose, talking would necessitate standing. My legs turn into jelly when she speaks.”

 

“I’m afraid I can’t go in your steed.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because mine do exactly the same.”

 

“Jesus, why don’t you all just have a threesome and trade your vampy horror stories?”

 

The mischievous look in Rose’s eyes, and her sly wink, make you immediately regret saying that.

 

As Rose and Kanaya fan more about Porrim, you realize Dave is doing that maddening thing with his eyes at you, again, glasses pushed up on his head. The fuck is his deal? He’s nodding his head to the heavy handed base, puffing on a statesmanly joint and you aren’t even close enough in the room that staring at each other is warranted at fucking all, yet here you both are. You hatefully stare back because you aren’t a little bitch, bite on the rim of your cup and let the harsh vodka slop around your tongue. You can’t deny it’s going to happen, he’s going to do something further to titillate and fuck with you, or he’s just going to act like he currently is, which is titillating and fucking with you enough. Oh my god why are you even here.

 

Oh my god he’s standing up oh my god he’s walking over.

 

“Greetings, loved ones.” He nods at Kanaya and Rose and, like at school when he handed you the fliers earlier, now that he’s actually in front of you, he’s avoiding your gaze a bit. Par the course. “You two scissor sisters look ravishing this evening.”

 

Rose lowers her eyes at his t-shirt. “I didn’t know Five Nights at Freddie’s, the artistic feat, was your cup of tea.”

 

“Are you fucking kidding I hated that game, ain’t nothing fun about sitting my ass in a chair getting spooked the fuck out by misbehavin’ robots, that’s my life in this house as it is. I’m wearing it ironically, and because Egbert hates furries.”

 

Kanaya: “Are animatronics technically furries?”

 

Rose: “I suppose the only way to find out, is to mount one.”

 

“Y’all into reefer?” Dave takes a hit, attempts a pass. “Got this joint fresh from the Bro earlier, presidential shit.”

 

“No thanks.”

 

You’re almost surprised to hear your own coarse, vengeful voice. Your heartbeat is rowdy, fucking wild, and that one vein in your forehead threatens to thrum.

 

Dave’s finally looking at you. Smiling, offensively persuasive. That weed smells sweet as _fuck._

 

“I happen to know from a shared friend of ours that you like the devil’s grass, Karkat.”

 

“I like candy and chocolate too, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to accept them from a perv in a sketchy ass van.”

 

“Are you or am I the perv in this situation?”

 

“You, asshole! And also you.”

 

_And stop calling into my radio show._

 

Then he just stares at you silently for a while, eyes so bright and intense and it fucking freaks you out to look at them so up close. You’d think they were a medical marvel even if he was/is Satan.

 

“Come walk with me for a minute.”

 

He’s only saying it to you.

 

“Um.” No? “Why?”

 

“I get it, you’re mad at me about somethin’. Can’t for the life of me imagine what it is.”

 

“Hm, what a righteous convenience that is.”

 

“Come on, I got this drink that’ll smooth things over, I promise. On the house?”

 

Maybe it’s the way his voice twangs that little bit when he poses the question, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s already walking away from you, assuming you’ll come or maybe assuming you won’t and one-upping you, or the fact that Rose and Kanaya are staring at you in corroborative curiosity. When you follow him, Rose waggles her eyebrows at you, and you turn your back on her, show her both your middle fingers.

 

In the adjacent bar/kitchen, Dave pours you an alarmingly neon orange-pink drink. Behind the bar they’ve got two XXL coolers with hoses attached and at least three kegs spewing stuff they call jungle juice. Dirk and Jake are practically famous for the brew that changes based on the leftovers they get from their Bro-dad. Each cup costs $4.20, but Dave is giving you this, like he said, on the house.

 

When he hands you the cup, you hesitate to drink it. Not because you don’t want to be any drunker, because you do. But when you look over at where you'd just left Kanaya and Rose, for respite from panic, you find that they are now talking to Porrim on another side of the room (how do witches move so quickly?), hands clutched tightly as if in celebrity company.

 

You're on your own on this one. You need the liquid courage.

 

Next to you, Dave is humming to himself and checking something menial on his Spectacles. You’re trying really hard not to buy this fake nice act he’s pulling, but there is something about the way he’s holding himself right now — quiet, sifting through screens on his shades like a shy, awkward kid with nothing real to say. Sort of like you. His guard is down. Here’s your opportunity to bust him.

 

“So how do the face sucking goggles work?” you say to Dave. “Were they worth the god awful price tag?”

 

“Oh, these? Here, lemme show you.”

 

He suddenly comes closer to you than you ever imagined he would be and he smells heady and clean, all dry amber and soap and bitter chrysanthemums, plus the scent of top shelf marijuana. He shows you that the Spectacles are connected to his iThrone7 and he commands them to do his bidding from the phone via Bluetooth. On the internal display, he can use apps like Snapcrap and record video using the external cameras tucked into the upper left and right most corners of the lenses, browse forums like Reddit, watch YouTube, or run any number of VR simulations. He’s working on a way to program them so that he can blink his instructions.

 

“Dirk’s got like rudimentary code for it, I mean it’s not  _good_ , but the kid didn’t get into MIT for naught. It’s gonna be sick with it once it’s all done. I’ve been practicing too but my eyelashes keep getting in the way of it counting blinks properly. Like damn it’s not my fault I was cursed with anime girl eyes.”

 

He needs to step away from you with that mind altering pheromone scent he's wafting so you back up, a little lightheaded. As he messes with the buttons and controls on one of the handles of the shades, your shaky hand guides the rim of the freezing cup to your nose, where you can feel the bubble, the sting.

 

“Do I even wanna know what you put in this bile?” you say.

 

“A little Malibu, a little Svedka, a little Crown Royal, actually you know what it’s mostly Crown Royal, like five hundred of those five hour energy things and all the grapefruit juice and punch John Hammer-arms could carry out of Super Saver. I’m not saying you’re gonna have a heart attack and die from it but you might have a heart attack and die from it.”

 

The stretch of skin across his nose and cheekbones is splattered with freckles and seriously, fuck this guy for having freckles on top of everything else. Dave starts to tell you about the time he, Dirk, Jake and John got lost in Vegas on the way back to their hotel when he was in eighth grade and all they had to drink was a thermos of the “juice” and a water bottle of Everclear. You wonder how so many dumb people get to stay alive so long. Oh, that’s right. Money.

 

“Anyway so Bro is doing his jerk off concert the whole day supposedly so we end up on the strip after having snuck into the breakfast barf-et at a hotel we didn’t even  _go_ to, and Jake is yelling, like, about anything and everything, then we end up at this  _other_ hotel and these old pimp looking dudes, like seriously canes, hats and the whole nine, gave us these tickets to this 18+ magicomedy show so of course we showed up. In the middle of it John starts puking on the floor beneath his seat. Dirk got chosen to be cut in half and have his looks ripped on stage by a hilarious eighty year old trans woman.”

 

“No one questioned the fact that you all were just kids?”

 

“I’m sure everyone did, but Vegas is Vegas, and you know what they say. Plus, if I may be so bold, we were a couple of good looking kids.”

 

This is obvious hate-mongering from him. He takes a moment to dabble on the end of the joint (and no you are not paying attention to the wetness of the paper where his mouth is), and you’re too frustratingly intrigued by this glimpse at his naked eyes to bolt towards Kanaya and Rose, tell them everything ridiculous he just said.

 

“What?” you say, when he won’t stop looking at you.

 

“Just surprised you showed up to my house, a l’il bit.”

 

“This may come as a surprise to you, but I have heaps of a fucking workload in life, I am woefully employed working twenty hours a week, plus the homework and fakery I get served from the worst inbred high school on the planet on a much too frequent basis. So I enjoy any situation where I can get fucked up on someone else’s dime.”

 

“Even with me, on my dime? Aw, so sweet.”

 

He passes you the joint, and you take it.

 

Your skin is hot. The drug hits your head and buzzes, spreads, makes everything airy, more colorful. Why is any of this happening? How drunk/high _are_  you, to be imagining a conversation with Dave like this? The burning of your stomach as you sip your cloyingly sweet drink lets you know you aren’t imagining this.

 

“Come with me again.”

 

Dave invites you to come and play a drinking game with "everyone" at what he calls the King’s table, and like he is a magnet you find yourself following. Also you are Really High all of a sudden and just trying not to act like it, blowing with the wind. You’ve never been this high around school people before.

 

There are about a hundred four suite playing cards laid out on the table. You are told by Aranea that there are eight kings in the double deck. A giant World’s Best Grandpa thermos full of prematurely-stewing elixir sits in the center of the cards’ splayed circle. The yankers of the seven king cards will pour a hefty portion of their drink into the thermos until it’s full. The unlucky chooser of the eighth king drinks the whole thermos. They’re doing this, they're making this happening.

 

You’re trying not to look so embarrassing at this game. Each card means a different thing and everyone is arguing about what house rules should and shouldn’t be. The absolute fucking worst round is waterfall, where everyone chugs until their neighbor stops - the goal is to royally fuck over your neighbor, et cetera – but this elixir Dave poured you is like eighty percent liquor. Your head’s already swimming and you’re still sweating like a fucking junkie under your jacket.

 

In the middle of the loosely structured game, they (including Dave) do bumps of cocaine off somebody’s iThrone. They swipe their fingers on the glass afterwards, rub the powder on their gums. Dave wordlessly offers you some by tilting the phone slightly in your direction when it comes to him, and glancing at you quick over the shades. He takes your open mouthed silence as a healthy declination.

 

Tension builds around that eighth king, interspersed with Meenah, Gamzee, Tavros, Vriska, everyone chiming in like a giant group chat, people moving in and out of the circle and you listening (and freaking out because Dave oh my god), and wondering if Terezi’s going to walk in or show up at all and how is nearly everyone in this group so frustratingly sexy in their own way? Even Gamzee with his weird, long limbs, that killer bone structure, broad hands that could crush your skull. Except your brother, he can kick rocks. Speaking of, he hasn’t been around.

 

And neither has Terezi. You seriously thought she would be here and part of that’s why you even wanted to come to this. She hasn’t missed a party of Dave Strider’s, well, since the two of them have been friends, which is forever. Maybe her head or her eyes are hurting. Does she like it, being cured now? Is she, even?

 

The King's cup game - over when Eridan is forced to drink the thermos - soon turns into a twisted game of Jenga, where you stack wooden blocks and pull them out until the tower falls. In this version there are instructions written on each block that say things like kiss your neighbor for thirty seconds, tell your neighbor what their hottest body part is, and suck each one of your neighbor’s toes.

 

Before the game begins, Dave is mid monologue with Feferi and Eridan when he casually switches his seat to the empty one next to you. No no no you are freaking out and his joint is still burning slow, and god you want a taste of it again so bad. Shouldn’t it be boy girl boy girl? Dave is So Not Acknowledging that he’s doing this. What on earth is that four foot glassblown contraption Dirk and Jake are handing to John right now? They’re also handing him a vial of something orange and a blowtorch. Dirk is calling the entire equipment range “dabs.”

 

On the other side of you scrambles Meenah. She says she takes a liking to you because she’s “frond of” KK, and you’re so embarrassed to hear her call you that you can’t even say thanks. The turns at pulling Jenga blocks go rather disgustingly smooth, with each friend not giving a shit who gets who—demigoddess Aranea ends up making out with Gamzee Makara, fucking giant ass Juggalo worshipping weed head Gamzee Makara, with not much more than a shrug, and Eridan is in hysterics watching Tavros get turned on by sucking Feferi’s feet, finding this more an opportunity to roast him than it is one to bark about his  ~~territory~~  girlfriend.

  
This can’t be happening, it can’t be happening but when Dave pulls his block, it has—nothing to do with you, thank fucking god. He ends up having to bite the nipples of the person across from him, who happens, just of course, to be John. The last thing you want to see right now is John’s pitch black chest tangle so you face palm, practically shaking beside yourself in unrest (and you’re so, so drunk), as the two do their thing that lasts all of five seconds. Dave mock gags as he sits down beside you and says “just bros being bros,” not even necessarily to you, as John feels the need to tell everyone how homosexual that wasn’t.

 

Now it's your turn and their eyes are on you, not expectantly or particularly curious or shocked, as you damn near stutter reading what’s printed on yours. Something rather light given the whole of the pot, but incredibly overwhelming for little old you.

 

“Let the person to your right do a body shot off you? I don’t even know what that  _is._ ”

 

All of a sudden two pairs of hands (both Meenah’s? Who else is touching you) help lower your onto your back on the floor as several people whistle. Meenah stands wide-legged and baggy pantsed over your torso. She slides your sweatshirt up your rib cage and the even louder whistling from around you makes you sick (and hot). Aranea hands her girlfriend a chilled tequila shot from out of no where, a lime wedge, and a ramekin full of cubed salt.

 

“Wait, hold on, what are you—mother of  _fuck_ , that is cold!”

 

All of a sudden Meenah’s splashing your belly button until it’s liquor-full, bending down, her face in yours (and oh Lord are you sweating buckets, you don’t know if you’ve ever sweat this much your life).

 

“I won’t make you reel this out of my mouth, okay, shorty?” Tongues the lime wedge in her mouth, in and out, as she starts to sprinkle salt in a thin line down your chest.

 

“I don’t know if I can ah- _hah_ —“

 

Her tongue, the little metal ball in it practically maddening, starts its slick journey down your abdomen and you’re terrified of yourself right now, to be on the ground, splayed out like this in front of them (makes you wish you could black out after this, and you would, if you didn’t have to work). Dave wears his glasses, cocks his head to one side, just watches. Her lips do this quick little suck along your navel and you have to shut your eyes, mumble a curse. As her friends applaud and you lie trembling on the floor, she winks at you and laughs out fucking rageously, devouring the lime’s flesh.

 

After becoming officially overwhelmed by the increasingly friendcestual Jenga game, you decide you’ve had enough of whatever it was Dave meant by inviting you to sit with them. It’s midnight and said party is somewhat winding down, [slower, ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6_YQje0vn0)[lighter music playing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6_YQje0vn0) on the Macbook to signal a mood change. You haven’t seen your brother or Cronus since early on and that’s pretty low on your list of places to give a fuck to right now, but you know it probably won’t stay that way. Kanaya is now alone with Porrim near the bookshelves in the dining room hall, so Rose walks up to you where you stand dizzy as hell, propping yourself up on the wall with one hand, rubbing one of your temples with the other.

 

“Well Kanaya’s really engaged, isn’t she?” you say to her.

 

“I think it’s adorable. She really is so caring. She remembers everything you tell her, even the minuscule. Right now they’re talking about every anarcho-feminist essay Porrim’s ever written for The Alternian Press. Kanaya has them all memorized.”

 

“That is pretty adorable, god damn her.”

 

“So.”

 

“So? What?”

 

“I didn’t see how it went down exactly, but I saw you at the table in King Arthur’s court.”

 

“Pipe down, Lalonde, don’t let him overhear you comparing him to Arthur. Christ.”

 

“I heard a lot of yelling.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“Did Meenah do a body shot off you?”

 

“You already heard, seriously? I hate this place and these people, I hate, I hate.”

 

“Meenah’s quite the catch, fish pun intended. You should consider yourself lucky.”

 

“I mean yeah, and she’s not quite as big-headed and mouthy as I thought she might be from association to my brother? But I can still feel her dried up spit on my chest, and I don’t consider that ‘luck.’”

 

Rose smiles, all too knowing.

 

“Terezi will hear about it, too.”

 

“Boo hoo.”

 

“Looks like she’s home sick. I saw it on Snapcrap.”

 

“Did you not hear what I just said? ‘Boo,’ and also, fucking ‘hoo.’”

 

“Yes, but wasn’t for her to hear what you wanted out of this?”

 

“I want for everyone to stop tip toeing around me and acting like I’m this fragile fucking cradle made of glass because I got dumped by my best friend and the best thing I thought would ever happen to me, five goddamn months ago. I get it, I’m small and I cried about it one too many times in public, but I’m sick of being the victim. I just want to be done with it.”

 

Rose is staring behind you, now, and you realize (and smell, Jesus that smell) that Dave has just walked up.

 

“He didn’t hear any of that,” Rose assures you.

 

“I didn’t hear any of that,” Dave agrees.

 

They’re both so fucking sarcastic and sardonic that you can’t tell if they’re lying or not. You’re entirely too tired, in need of a shower and thinking about your migraine at this point to care.

 

“What can I get for you, sir?” you say to Dave.

 

As if he wasn’t expecting that from you, Dave hesitates for a moment. Pushes his (currently running light VR) shades up a bit on his button nose.

 

“I’d like a double double with grilled onions, no lettuce, no cheese, extra extra extra tomato like so much tomato the juices fly and splatter up my window when I bite into it, do add the sauce, and put like twenty five French fries in between the beefs, exactly. I will hold up this drive thru line so help me god if I open my burger and there are not twenty five.

 

“Also, come with me again, outside. Last time, I promise.”

 

Dave asks you to follow him to the locked patio, where he says he sneaks out to get moments alone to smoke. Much to your horror, he closes the door behind you two. Out here you can see the magnificent off-limits backyard complete with jet black pool, all sheet of glass with the moon at its center.

 

“If you’re getting ready to push me off the balcony,” you say, “you’ve got it coming. I’m putting up a fight.”

 

“Honestly Terezi’s like still pretty into you.” Dave says this fast and not looking in your direction, and he further explains that that’s why, when Terezi talked about you “like that” during morning announcments, he went and pretty much immediately listened to and downloaded every podcast, every thing of you. Trying to find a weakness in you.

 

He sheepishly, after he takes another drag of the joint, admits: “You may or may not have a certain set of skills.”

 

There goes that shy thing you noticed about him again, and this whole thing, inviting you to his party and trying to get his friends to share their drugs and crude hormonal urges with you? This is his backwards ass way of apologizing, isn’t it? Well, tough luck, rich douche. The only kinds of apologies you accept start and end with the words: I’m sorry.

 

And you, for the first time, have a thought:

 

_Am I something? Does he see me as a threat? Equal?_

 

But Dirk interrupts you then, the sliding glass door going  _smack!_ against the wall.

 

“Oh," Dirk says.

 

Dirk is wearing equally encompassing triangle shaped Spectacles and is perched before you two in waiting like a buff, twenty year old mercenary. Your stomach lurches at the sight of him, and those pale, ink-soaked arms.

 

“Dude, get in here, someone just broke Bro’s Congolese voodoo statuettes. Also, the foyer window.”

 

“Fucking fuckers.”

 

Dave turns to go in a flash, not looking back, and you are left alone.

 

 

♋️

 

 

The alcohol is starting to wear off and your head’s starting to kill even more than it already was. You have to be at work in an hour and a half, and that kills too. You manage to Kankri not long after you return from the patio, standing by himself in the parlor. His eyes are wide, but only because he’s straining extraordinarily to make them so.

 

“What's wrong with you?” you say to him.

 

He’s startled a bit to find you, but he sighs, deciding not to pretend you’re pure thin air for once you guess.

 

His voice is soft, feeble:

 

“I need you to drive.”

 

“Oh, well isn’t this rich. Mr. Goody Two High Heels is too drunk to drive.”

 

“If you tell Dad, I swear, Karkat – ”

 

“You think Dad honestly gives a hot steaming pile of feces where either of us is right now? I mean seriously, every blue moon he and his best buddy the pope pick a random thing on any given day to be pissed at us about, but he’s literally never cared how late or early I come in every night, even on occasions when I don’t come home at all. I could be in some back alley shooting craps with drug dealers every goddamn night for all he knows.”

 

“You certainly always  _smell_ like a drug dealer.”

 

“Better than like baby lotion, tears and disappointment, like you.”

 

Kankri holds the keys up high with two fingers as if you should hold your hand open and let him drop them in. You practically snatch them instead. He scowls.

 

This is probably the worst time you’ve ever had to DD, though technically you’re not all that sober, because on top of having to take Kanaya and Rose to their respective neighborhoods, you now have the luxury of having to cart Cronus Ampora back to the hole he crawled out of.

 

“Thanks for letting me smoke cigs in your car, Kan’s bro.”

 

“Don’t mention it. No, I mean, seriously. Don’t.”

 

Fuck you, drunk!Cronus. Kankri’s seriously going to owe you you don’t know what for practically begging you to take his pathetic boyfriend home. You only agreed because you enjoy seeing him beg, and because you wanted to get an idea of the atrocities committed during Cronus’s first ride in this car, earlier. Which you have to take with you to work. It smells like hideous overbearing cologne and stale tobacco.

 

The entire ride with Cronus (you drop him off first, even though it’s way out the way), he rambles a horrifically self obsessed monologue that consists of bragging on all the girls he touched tonight, drunk-singing along to the Future song on the radio, that you then change, and talking about how “vwonderful” his new mixtape’s going to be.

 

“I got this whole new sound going, I spent thousands on these new tapes to record it, hold on, let me pull up my Soundcloud — ohhhh, yeah, that’s that shit, right there.”

 

All the while, Kanaya, passenger side, and Rose stare at each other through the rear view mirror like they’re in The Office .

 

Kankri is too (what is it, drunk? Stoned? You can’t tell, he sort of looks this miserable all the time) to notice, object, or care about what Cronus says, from his cramped, quiet position next to the offender in the back seat. What does he see in this loser?

 

Once everyone else is gone, Kankri, irritable, insists that he’s sober enough now, and forces you to hand him the keys to drive. Exhausted, you let him, and pass out on the passenger side until he slams the door shut in your driveway.

 

Only approximately one hour before work.

 

Mistakes were made.

 

 

♋️

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Ever since I lost my baby_  
_I’ve had this black suit on_  
_Rolling around like I’m r_ _eady for a funeral_  
_One more mile ‘til the road runs out_  
_I’m about to drive in the ocean_  
_I’ma try to swim from s_ _omething bigger than me_  
_Kick off my shoes and s_ _wim good, swim good_  
_Take off this suit and s_ _wim good, swim good_

– Frank Ocean, “[Swim Good](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyRnkDDHy8E)” 

 

 

♋️

 

 

For all that you’ve ragged on Dave’s blogs, you admit that you’ve never looked much at them. Glimpses of his homepages (which are almost always hipster or hypebeast in nature, ironic album reviews of shit rap music and pop up skate shops that sell $500 ripped t-shirts) have caught your eye the few times in your school days you’ve sat behind Dave in a computer lab. But you would never stoop yourself as low as to actually _read_  them. You don’t have to visit them to know they’re useless garbage, and Dave has the rest of your high school and the greater southwestern upper middle class “counterculture” to count on for likes. In your humble opinion.

 

But as you drive through the mountains in the dark tonight, after the party, you use your phone to view the parody of The Quadrant he posted on SBHJ. At first you refused to read his read of you because you didn’t want to feed him, never feed the trolls, plus very, very secretly, you thought his depictions might hurt your feelings. At best, as you scroll though it, you feel annoyed that this isn’t even funny, the whole purposefully-drawn-bad thing is so fucking 2013, are you right? Back when those rage guy comics were still cool?

 

No, Dave can’t make a sad attempt at being charming and funny and sharing his (really dank) weed with you at the party to mask this all over. Seriously, you say to yourself, why the fuck would Dave be trying to get to know things about you with any ounce of sincerity? His pointed interest in you tonight, the invitation into his superworld, was a joke, it is always a joke.

 

When you saunter to the office, Nepeta embraces you and then slightly recoils, sniffing your cheek.

 

“You smell like fun!” she says. “And vodka.”

 

“Are you drunk?” says Equius.

 

“Ahaha, thith it claththic,” chucks Sollux.

 

“No, Jesus fuck, what do you take me for? Just on my way to being disgustingly hungover. I don't want to even  _think_  about the night I've just had.”

 

Equius says, “My boss is coming in to see us.”

 

“Shit. Now?”

 

Great, you are underage and clearly out of sorts, reeking of liquor and the station co-director, who you’ve only met a grand total of thrice, will be here.

 

Sollux says, “Are we in trouble?”

 

Equius shrugs. “Not that I know of.”

 

The middle aged director wanders into your soundproof room, then, carrying a clipboard (at this time of night? What for? The night station workers are motionless, overworking zombies, they don’t need supervision). He’s a bit blissfully oblivious and a lot like the popular conservative AM morning news guys the station boasts as their headlining acts. He can’t seem to tell anything is off with you in particular as he quickly makes you gather round the small wooden table by the doorway, and you're grateful, because right now, you're seeing about three of him.

 

“How’s everybody doing tonight?” he greets cheerfully, too loud.

 

None of you answer, not even Equius. It’s two A.M., you’re all sleep deprived and spending your Friday night here instead of anywhere else. How does he think you're doing?

 

“Just wanted to stop by and tell you that wow, you kids have done some work here. You deserve some time off, with your families, for the holiday. We’ll see you Tuesday!” He pauses, then, to Equius and Nepeta: “Wait, do Indians celebrate Labor Day?”

 

“Sorry, that’s not what I came in for,” he answers himself, and you see Nepeta and Equius share a disparaged look, wish you could hug them. “In addition to giving you kids some time off, I’d like to bump your program up a few hours on the schedule, if you don’t mind that.”

 

“Certainly, sir,” says Equius.

 

“We’ll switch some things around, put that college gal with the show about agriculture in your time slot instead. How’s eleven P.M. sound?”

 

You wait until he’s shut the door behind him to say: “Did we just kind of get promoted?”

 

“Don’t know if you could call it that, it’th thtill the buttfuck middle of the night.”

 

"Welcome, everyone, to Funfession Friday Night at the Quadrant. For those of you who are here for the second time only, welcome! Thrilled to have you back. Tonight's spread allows you to take a break from hesitations, pining, longing and all that other social-media-barrier-induced bullshit, and gives you a chance to get all that sap off your chest. Maybe the person you feel most about is ten thousand miles away, physically or emotionally, and there's something you're just suffering to tell them, but you can't. So, tell them here! Who knows, maybe, just maybe, they'll be listening in too."

 

 _"My Funfession Friday goes out to Slick_ , _shout out to you for always looking like ten million dollars, always washing my sneakers and leaving me the crispy parts of the brownie tray after we bake 'em. Dump your boyfriend already! Can you make brownies with_  him?  _His deathly allergies to gluten and peanuts and anything fun say hello! Ugh, I love you, Slick._ "

 

_"Girl, I've been wanting to tap that ass since the third grade. But more than that I wanna love that ass, take it to a fine ass restaurant, drape it in the finest clothes, make love have a kid with that ass, I know I'm young but ten years is ten years, and you're still right here."_

 

“ _Hi. Sorry, this doesn’t fit in quite with the Funfession theme.”_ The voice of this male is Australian, resonates in your burning ears much more than the others all of a sudden. Something about it seems. Familiar?  _“Not at all, actually. I’m calling I suppose on behalf of my little sister Jade? This is her brother Bec. I hope this is appropriate.”_

 

Ah, that's what's familiar. Nepeta and Sollux stare at you pointedly and you have to admit, your stomach does a somersault, hearing her name. Jade was a girl who started calling the line the October of your freshman year, who was from the get go a run for your money. Exactly the kind of emphatic, loud and particular caller you wanted to be in the business for.

 

“ _KK,”_  she said the first night she called, like she'd known you her entire life,  _"I bet you've never had a girlfriend before.”_

 

“Oh? And how do you figure that, random Australian person I've never met before?”

 

“ _Good ears! I bet they can't tell what part of Australia!”_

 

“Gee, I don't know, that one part with all the desert? You people don't even have states or countries or anything, right? Like, you're just a slab of sand with white imperialists and incomprehensibly large insects?”

 

“ _I think you've never had a girlfriend because you don’t know basic geography! And you're afraid to kill the bug!”_

 

“That is straight up sexism, women can be fierce and ferocious and kill the goddamn spiders, and men can cower in terror at them while still maintaining their very in tact and very attractive masculinity. Thank you.”

 

For two months Jade was pure rebellion and mad scientist, off tune music to your ears. She collected rifles and shotguns on the wall of her greenhouse-turned-bedroom and told you stories of how she scared off several potential swains when showing her collection. There was also the fact that she lived on an unincorporated island with less than a hundred dwellers, so there were very few swains to begin with. You have no idea how she found your show; apparently, an IP address in Ensena that she used on her VPN led her to your site.

 

"You know, I find it funny that Jade here is trying to give  _me_  advice about not letting dreams lead me to make rash decisions.” The nights when she called, you admit, you stayed on with her too long and got a little off topic, but the conversation always went a good way, bantering and trading barbs. This was when calls were still coming in slow, anyway. “When this is the same person who writes to herself in second person in her dream journal, like a self referential egomaniac!"

 

_"Well at least my sleep is productive and I get any at all! What’s the point of your mind doing all that work and creating these kick butt new worlds if you can’t learn anything from them? I bet you’d have crazy, life changing dreams if only you were like me. And if you weren’t so obsessed with control."_

 

“No thanks, Jade, as fantastic as it would be to be a trigger happy renegade living in the middle of the fucking ocean, I don’t think I’d like to fall asleep at the wheel at any point in my life.”

 

“ _That only happened three times, asshole! And my sleep walking dream bot promptly took over.”_

 

“Still don’t believe that’s a thing that you actually have, but okay.”

 

“ _Come and see it for yourself!”_

 

“Sure! When and where can I catch the next flight to some nondescript rock in the Pacific?

 

“But anyway, I feel like the whole ‘I dreamed about my ex so it must mean something thing’ just gets too existential. Sometimes your dream brain wants things that don't make sense in the rational world. Like, there's taking a chance on a likely romance, and there's recognizing when your dreams about this person might be leaving wishful thinking territory and heading into desperate lingering obsession territory."

 

_"See? This is you letting Skepticist KK sabotage True Love Waits KK!"_

 

"It's cute that you've named my multiple personalities, they certainly all get along better with you than they do with each other! But only slightly, they hate everyone pretty equivocally."

 

_"Na, I fucking hate Hasn't Slept In Two Days KK. If he's listening, tell him to kiss my ass!"_

 

"He's currently unavailable, but he'll be sorry he missed Vociferous Tone Deaf Jade, tonight, she is just a fucking de _light_."

 

_"Are you making fun of my accent?"_

 

"No?"

 

_"That thing you did, with your voice just there at the end!"_

 

"What thing?"

 

_"The thing! I heard that, that intonation, mister fuck face!"_

 

“Mister fuck face?” You barked out your laugh. "Seriously, I have no idea what you're talking about, now or ever."

 

_"Oh, shut up, you always do."_

 

You kind of did.

 

“ _Okay, I appreciate the thought of an apology, but if you already know you are going to do a thing, don’t apologize for it in advance. Just don’t do it!”_ She often called the show on various nights starting out with out of context responses to messages you’d sent her earlier in the day.

 

“Keep in mind everybody, this is her response to me apologizing that I can’t marry her sooner.”

 

“ _I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think_ _I would marry you, crazy. That would make_  me  _crazy!”_

 

“’Crazy’ is a politically incorrect term, you failure of a millennial, and you’re insensitive for using it.”

 

“ _Ugh. Do you know what you should do? You should just marry yourself! That way you’ll never run  out of an argument to make, because with you, and also you, they will probably just last forever.”_

 

“No you were right, I am kind of crazy. But thanks for the apology anyway. I will cherish it, frame it, and hang it on the wall of our office in memoriam.”

 

“It'th grothth how in love you two are.”

 

"Oh my god, Jade, did you fall asleep on the air again? Are you all hearing or should I say not hearing this? Wait, no, that is actual snoring. Our foreign princess resembles a sputtering, monstrous lawnmower when she's not among the waking." You were so stupidly into her, even though she was just a (raspy, quirky, beautiful) voice. "Goodnight, loser."

 

For some reason, she stopped calling in after that night. At 3 a.m., Jade woke up for a few minutes, drew one last picture on the shipping wall representing a rumored relationship between two obscure lesbian punk bandmates no one had ever heard of until then, and got several other users obsessing over the ship in her absence.

 

Long time Quadrant user/listener britneyspearscansuckit had called the next night saying you were meant to be together. Other users speculated as to the nature of your digital relationship on the shipping wall. But the reality was this person lived literally across the globe. The only international listener you had, who just found you by a fluke.

 

You wondered what happened to her for months, but had never known her as anything other than Jade gardenGnostic, which is not a proper surname. Your frequent, late night Google searches were futile, scanning through photos upon photos of girls named Jade from Australia on Chumbook, wondering if this particular girl with dreadlocks and handmade bracelets and a genuine, gap-toothed smile, was really her, or if you'd just decided it was, because you were that lonely, because you needed a human to dream about.

 

You forgot about her soon enough, when weeks turned to months and especially when Terezi finally started showing interest in you that spring. It was just one of those things, people fading out of play. But now, hearing her brother's voice in your ears, you can't stop thinking in guilt about those times, in between, when Jade's voice would almost fade from your memory so you'd listen to her best rants on your archived programs, jack off, and post-orgasm, feel terrible and like she'd hate you if she knew.

 

“ _She passed away,”_ Bec says to you, in the present.

 

"Oh. Shit. Wow." You sit at your desk in stunned silence for a moment, until you snap back in to the blinking lights on the switchboard, remember that the pace is supposed to be faster now,  _focus_. "I'm sorry to hear that, Bec, she was – definitely a lovable personality many a night 'round these parts. I remember her fondly. Can I ask how she – " That was it, fifteen years was all the short time Jade got to live – "how it happened?"

 

_"Drunk driving accident, December last year. I'm so sorry that it took me so long to find you, mate, and let you know. We're just now going through what things she left in her bedroom, her computer. But I thought – well, she was a big secret fan of yours, that drawing website always made her happy. Poppop and I could always hear her laughing up a shouting match with you. I know this is facetious, but I wanted to thank you, for posting online, reaching out to people."_

 

Gratefully the station’s prerecorded commercial break at the halfway point was coming up soon enough that you could cut to it early.

 

While Sollux and Equius fix what brought parts of the website down during the last few minutes of that segment, you and Nepeta sit and speak, somber.

 

“I know it’s been a long time since we’ve heard from her," says Nepeta, "but I feel terrible she’s gone so soon!”

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

“ _Fuck, that last call_ _about that dead girl_ _kinda has me all in my feelings. I regret ever ignoring her calls, I regret letting her slip away, and just. I don’t know. To anyone out there who’s still waiting for that perfect time or even that perfect someone, don’t wait. People have flaws, they’ll never be perfect. Do it, even if it fails, even if it makes you feel that crazy, panicked adrenaline rush. Life is short. Feel all you can before its gone.”_

 

Post-show, its apparent to your sore, sickly body that you've been pleasant and agreeable long enough; your head is in nightmarish pain and you can’t wait to be in the dark with pillows smothering it, alone. The rest of the program had a smooth consistent flow, yielded another record high listenership of 10,000 ear pairs, your beloved website earning 30k hits. This week has really set you off. But you want to die because of your fucking hangover.

 

As Nepeta shows you her favorite post-show clusters of the shipping wall, you feel selfish for the sinking feeling in your chest, the hurt. You keep say-thinking her name over and over,  _Jade, Jade._ You feel selfish even wanting to be upset about this. How would this too heavy sadness make you look to them? Nepeta, Sollux and Equius know more about death, are better acquainted with its kiss, than you are for damn sure. Sollux had lost both sets of grandparents by the time he was ten and Nepeta and Equius' families are living on a Native reservation, rooted in too soon departures, relatives lost to the depression of a genocide.

 

You had a minor (okay, fucking major, while it lasted) crush on someone who you had zero chances in hell of ever meeting, who might've been 400 pounds – as if that would've stopped you, she was a gem and you wouldn't've cared what she looked like – and who was dead now. So what? You shouldn’t let it hurt you more than it deserves to. And does it?

 

The comments section on your website right now is pretty full of support for you guys. It seems that where Dave's attacks last night were meant to deter you, they've opened doors.

 

You're all relieved you get to take the day off tomorrow, to regroup. Your friends deserve it, and “this will give us time to jump start on our new project,” you say to them, as you take your leave.

 

“New project?” says Nepeta to you. “You mean?”

 

“Let’s make that shipping app.”

 

 

♋️

 

 

The news about Jade, on top of the frighteningly long day you'd already had, knocks you on your ass. You sleep a solid six hours, which is more than you’ve put in in months. At around eleven, you wake to the dull throb of your alcohol afflicted head, the smell of eggs and butter in a frying pan, black coffee boiling. Saturday mornings are one of the few times a week your entire family is home and, coincidentally, the day you like to hang around the least.

 

Your bedroom door is closed and you’ll keep it that way for now; the egg smell is making you nauseous, drinking that much having put you in a place where there’s so much putrid waste in your stomach that forcing yourself to puke would actually boost recovery? But you can’t make yourself do it, no matter how sick you feel, never can, never will.

 

You check your phone instead. You’re still getting several random calls a day from numbers you don’t know, steady ever since Terezi’s PA announcement. This happens from time to time notwithstanding, it’s the Information Age and phone books turned databases are a thing, but the timing of The Quadrant spreading around doesn’t aid matters much. It's not that difficult to just block the numbers, but still. Where are they coming from? Why now?

 

It also doesn’t aid your nausea to see that Dave has sent you a friend request on Pesterchum, after he's spent the last six years and counting hate-existing on your People You May Know list. God, now you have to process and accept that you were in his world last night, irritated as all fuck by how heavenly he smelled and _those eyes_ but wildly uncomfortable with your clear temporary insanity, and now he wants to be “cool” with his ex’s(?) ex. Why? What's his angle here?

 

And what is going on with him and Terezi?

 

He’s offline at the moment, and from a distance since you were kids, you have watched turntechGodhead change his icon ironically to visages such as Shrek with a Santa hat (all days of the year) and GIR from Invader Zim.

 

You can’t stop thinking about what else he was going to say on the patio, before Dirk interrupted/saved you.  _“Honestly Terezi’s like still really into you.”_ Seriously? Hearing him say that was insulting to your intelligence. It’s like he’s always purposefully trying to ignore how much she likes him, always has liked him. Is he fighting just to fight her? If Terezi’s still into you, where are her messages explicitly stating so? Where are her actions?

 

Speaking of messages, and action, it appears turntechGodhead has just flashed online, sent you a series:

 

turntechGodhead began pestering carcinoGenetcist at 11:29:55

TG: listen not to be weird but i woke up in the middle of my sleep last eve in a big mood to be yelled at by a moody sophomore so

TG: i listened to your broadcast

TG: sorry about your friend man i lost somebody not that long ago

 

You can’t believe he’s doing this?

 

TG: anyways i gotta fly but

 _turntechGodhead attached file_ davids_mother_fucking_baptism.jpeg

TG: its on the dl nothing like last nights mood

TG: meenah wants you to swim by she wanted me to tell you specifically like that so

TG: yeah come by if you feel like it

TG: peace

 

turntechGodhead ceased pestering at carcinoGeneticist at 11:32:05

 

Re: the events of last night’s poignant show, you’re in a complacent enough mood to respond semi peacefully. That, and your throbbing head can’t work fast enough to come up with a response that would wreck him.

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering turntechGodhead at 11:40:16

CG: I REALLY WISH YOU’D STOP LISTENING TO MY SHOW, LIKE THAT IS A THING THAT NEVER SHOULD’VE STARTED AND COULD I TRAVEL IN TIME BACKWARD, I WOULD STOP IT, AS WELL AS QUITE POSSIBLY YOUR BIRTH ONTO THIS WRETCHED, SUFFERING PLANET.

CG: BUT THANKS.

turntechGodhead is offline, auto-reply:  _meet in the trap its going down meet me in the mall its going down meet me in the club its going down anywhere you meet me guaranteed to go down_

CG: THAT SONG IS TERRIBLE.

CG: SEE YOU IF I FEEL LIKE IT

CG: I WON’T

 

carcinoGeneticist ceased pestering turntechGodhead at 11:42:47.

 

At noon you decide to at least try to keep a pint of black coffee down, and stumble downstairs. At the kitchen table, light flooding in from the sliding glass door and making things entirely too bright, Kankri is sitting alone, eating an omelet. That explains the horrible egg smell.

 

You sit down across from him with your stained mug of coffee, and your parents are nearby enough that they could overhear your conversation, should you have one – his mother in the laundry room, your father reclining in the adjacent living room – but wouldn’t. Kankri is in as bad and disconnected of a place with your shared father, too. Kankri’s grades have apparently been slipping since he and his mother transitioned here, and his dad is especially hard on him about it in his way. He pays you two based on your report cards each semester, $40 for each A, $30 for Bs, and so on. Straight A’s in seven classes year round means $560 to fuck with. Most of your 'fucking with' is paying for gas though, and Kankri is straight up broke lately. His applications to college might be dismal, unyielding, and your father wants him out and independent when he graduates.

 

It’s creepy to see another version of you that has existed in another context. Even doing something as menial as chewing his food like he is now, you can see your own face, your own jawline as if in a mirror, making the same motions. If he wasn’t canonically older, you could easily be twins, the way his face favors yours. But he looks at you and sees a mistake for existing, the quite unintended bastard child, the reason your father left them years ago.

 

The TV on the kitchen counter is old school, bulky, dials on its front to change the channels, frizzy antennae. Just like your obsession with traditional radio, your dad has an affinity for vintage electronics. On TV across from you and your brother, the current President of the United States is talking, or rather attempting, and your brother decides to give his troubled commentary.

 

“Now keep in mind that I try not to be a conservative morally so much as fiscally, but it's not that people don’t deserve to  _live_ ,” he's saying about healthcare reform, and _it_ _'s easy to be conservative with money when you have none!_ your mind supplies, “it’s that people don’t want to work hard to gain any benefits. Trust me, there is a job created for every person out there if they just put their mind to it to seek it. I have a learning disability, but you don’t see me asking for a hand out.”

 

“I don’t even want to begin to unpack all the fuck shit you just said, but I mean seriously, on all the issues that  _you_ care about, like teaching the Bible in schools and correcting the language around ableism, there is no arguing. But if you don’t agree, then it’s wrong, right?”

 

Kankri gets a text on his phone, vibrating against the table, that makes him frown, tune you out.

 

“Um.”

 

He gets up immediately and answers the phone call that soon follows, letting himself out through the sliding glass door into the backyard. It’s almost 90 degrees and he’s out there in two piece flannel pjs, the monster, talking and holding his hand erratically to and from his jawline, his mouth repeating  _sorry, yes, sorry, yes._

 

This won’t be the last of your eye on him, you swear, but your stomach lurches as you digest what little of the coffee you’ve attempted, so you give up hope, dump the rest down the sink drain. As you rinse up, you and your father make brief eye contact across the island that separates the kitchen and the family room, and that serves as your once over greeting. He has been like this, unnervingly quiet, disinterested in the details of your life, for as long as you can remember, since your mother left. Just like you try not to imagine Kankri’s mother and him as a divorcée and child years ago, you try not to imagine your mother and you from back then. She was never a citizen, was she able to get her own visa? Did she have to go back to the Philippines? Does she think of you at all? Did she ever die?

 

Your father’s answers to these questions are always simple, closed:

 

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from your mother in years. She doesn’t want to be found. I hope everything worked for her.”

 

You’ve already learned your lesson trying to search for her online. You even had Sollux and Equius hack into peoplefinding sites like LixusNixus to try and find a plausible address or number for a woman with her first and last name. Even if you’d found anything accurate, it’s not like you would’ve had the courage to reach out.  _Hi, this is your son, just calling to see if there’s a chance that you didn’t abandon me?_  The reverse image searches you’ve tried, of the blurry few you have of her, have all revealed stock photos or strangers.

 

It’s on this note in your mind that you dismiss yourself from the kitchen. Your father never stirs from his armchair once he’s in it, his eyes glazed over. What hasn’t he told you? Why can’t you let go?

 

After “breakfast,” some math homework and several too strong Indica bowls, you knocked out again until 8 p.m. You know you need to sleep, but it puts you in this haze you don't like. Makes you unaware, unprepared for things.

 

You open Pesterchum, cranky and nap-groggy. Still nothing from Terezi. It’s Rose and Kanaya’s date night, and they always send you an in progress photo. This time it’s of them in a Japanese garden and arboretum. What are you going to do tonight?

 

It’s been so long since you’ve been on a date. Or been kissed. Okay not  _that_ long, 5 months and 23 days (who’s counting?), but that can feel like a very long time when you live in a culture impressed by a media that encourages making out, among other things, at every possible avenue. You don’t like to watch porn anymore, it makes you pensive to think about who the strangers might _be_ , what the circumstances were for the video, whether any of it hurts maybe just a little. Do they love each other, and/or their jobs? But that doesn’t mean you, the most hopeful of romantics, don’t still have a creative imagination.

 

It's Saturday night, and you're bored and alone, so you get to thinking. Terezi used to kiss you so well, her black hair framing her face and tickling your inner thighs. But you don’t want to think about her, bundle further beneath your blankets. Close your eyes and think about last night, about the party. Maybe say, Meenah, and the way her tongue felt. Would she ever go out with you? You’re disgraced that you even just had that thought, she's a lesbian and way out of your fucking league, but maybe she could show you things. She's much taller than you, boisterous, could probably throw you around a little.

 

There was the body shot, and there are also your memories of Dave’s hands last night; bouncing a joint between two fingers, pressed along his thighs when he sat, toying with his shades and belt buckle. The way his head turned and he stared when Meenah went down.

 

That ass in those jeans, can’t pretend you weren’t looking. It’s not him you’re imagining but maybe someone like him, who could dirty-shit-talk you, drive you crazy. There’s some build up at that thought, but it tries and fails to keep you. You know you're just thinking about him, and you can't admit it.

 

Giving up, you grab your laptop and scroll around Pesterchum, perusing. Terezi’s PC story is empty, but Dave’s consists of crossposted Snapcrap videos from his Spectacles POV. Him pushing John in inner tubes down his pool’s rock slide, pouring wine down a junior girl’s mouth. In the background of some videos, you can see Meenah and your brother's friends minus Cronus, who seemed to want to get to know you. Without him there, without everyone thinking of you as "Meenah's friend's Kankri's little brother," maybe something like this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it'll stop the crushing lonely you feel. You could go for seeing Meenah again, even though nothing will ever happen there. She was cool to you.

 

It’s the siren call of the party - in which all social rules and guidelines are subject to change because drugs and alcohol lift borders, free spirits - that gets you out of bed and ready to go out, brushing your hair mindlessly. You’re not expecting to be the most popular fuck in the hallways next week because of this tiny little kickback or anything, but maybe, just maybe, someone older will take notice of you. It’s not that you need anyone’s approval! It’s just that it sucks to be alone. Who knows, maybe tonight, "KK" will show up instead of Karkat in your steed, and make friends.

 

When you go to get the keys from beside the garage door, Kankri doesn’t stir in his bedroom nearby, where you can see him in the sliver of the open door, hunched over his desk. You can guess he probably declined the invitation. Kanaya and Rose won’t be there with you too, and it’s been a long time since you've done anything social without them, now that you think about it. Will that change matters much? What is it you’re even trying to gain?

 

You’re even not sure you still want to go as you floor it up the hill to the Estates at ten, but it’s more that you feel this magnetic force drawing you along. Like your mind is in a haze and you’d be anywhere right now.

 

A [reverberant pop song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCamNVDnICs) is playing as you walk through the giant iron wrought gates, into the sprawling, white lit back yard, complete with rushing, luxury pool. About thirty people are here swimming, including Meenah, Porrim, and Aranea, and thank god, as anticipated, not your brother or his stalker.

 

You keep walking as you realize none of the juniors and seniors have particularly noticed or cared that you’ve wandered in, and head straight to the bar table. Champagne on ice, with proper glasses. This _is_  a different party.

 

You’re aware it’s not civilized to swallow the first glass of bubbly down on the first go, that you’re supposed to sip politely with your pinky raised and shit, but fuck civilization. As you pour each glass, exactly four full ones, imbibe, you turn your back on the sophisticated pool swimmers, as if that would hide the fact that you’re chugging, as if they're even watching at all. Okay that’s enough of being embarrassing, you’re on your way to being happily mind numbed enough for and starting not to feel like a loser for coming at all. You start walking around with glass number five, and two random juniors you have in Advanced Stats fourth period smile and nod at you as they pass. Okay, that’s something.

 

No sign of Terezi again, too, as you suspected. She and Dave must really not be good right now.

 

“Hey, mini Vantas!”

 

Meenah calls you over from where she’s one leg in and one leg out of the rock quarried jacuzzi that’s connected to the pool, surrounded by Porrim and Aranea.

 

It wasn’t exactly your plan to get into the water, though you are in your shorts, so you stand at the ridge before them. God, they’re all so beautiful. Your brother is friendship-unworthy.

 

“Hey,” you offer weakly, waving.

 

“You in?” Meenah says, gesturing to the water, which has about ten people spaciously playing and laughing within it.

 

“Uh, I don’t think so.”

 

“Don’t be shy,” says Aranea. “The temperature in here is just perfect.”

 

“I wanted to say to you last night at the thing,” says Meenah, “I got mad respect for any kid who can live with Kankri’s spoiled rotten ass and not wanna take their own life or somefin.” She holds out her fist so you lean forward to offer yours. She bumps you rough, the rings on her knuckles scratching and you try not to wince and recoil your hands. Man, is she strong.

 

“I appreciate that,” you say. “I’ve always felt there should be some sort of Greek god bearing trophy invented in my honor, awarded to me, the unfortunate asshole year after year.”

 

Porrim laughs, and you try not to feel smug about it.

 

“He’s hard on you, Karkat,” she says, “but deep down, I think he cares.”

 

“I vehemently doubt that.”

 

It is starting to get warm now that you’re inebriated, and standing near a smoking hot cauldron. You make quick work of your t-shirt, so as not to stand exposed with your stretch marked stomach, and slink into the water at the halfway point between Meenah and the girls, and the next cluster of friends. You realize as you sit in silence for a moment that this shit about Jade is hitting you harder than you expected it to. In this hot tub, you swear you can hear her babbling brook of laughter coming from somewhere beside you, around you.

 

You realize that this setting probably isn’t the best place to be in, after that news. But at home, you’d just be alone.

 

Jade’s ghost in your head notwithstanding, you are enjoying the fact that around these champagne-drunk people, you can get toasted yourself and no one will care because they’re enjoying themselves too hard. For several beautiful minutes at a time, you can just be quiet and warm underwater and bask in that, and no one bothers you. You’re doing it now, for the first time in a long time relishing in being somewhat invisible. Dipping mostly under the bubbles of the giant spa as Aranea, Meenah, and Porrim takes shots to your right, and Gamzee, Vriska and Tavros splash each other to your left.

 

Having a rich hate-acquaintance with a million dollar pool is kind of nice. You guess. Just as long as they keep their distance.

 

Dave has been somewhat scarce and in and out of tonight’s festivities, which has made you feel less weird about relaxing and putting your guard down in this place that belongs to him by proxy. But it’s kind of impossible to avoid his almost gaze, to not watch him when he does make a celebrated appearance through the yard. The host is simultaneously socializing, iThrone DJ-ing and grabbing food, ice, and bottles and shit from the kitchen inside the main house, on the second story. Through the giant glass windows that make up the house’s entire back wall, you see him darting to and from the fridge, back down the spiral staircase, out here and into the pool for five rowdy minutes, then dovetailing out dripping wet again. He seems in such a good mood.

 

You realize as you peacefully slow cook that you haven’t been in a pool or the water in general in years. You haven’t been avoiding it or anything, but everything is so arid where you live; all of the pools in the Valley are privately owned and there’s no reason to use the one in the gym at school. But you have always known how to swim since you were a kid. Every once a while now you fantasize about driving your dad’s old stick all the way through the Ensena mountains, to the cliffs and the beach and the sea. You’ve been to the beach before, just before your mother left, you can’t remember much but you are sure of that. It’s something of a recurring dream you have: your mother swimming with you in the ocean, dressed in all white, teaching you how to maintain your breath, not fall or sink, as your father watched from ashore.

 

You decide to jump the small tile bridge separating the spa from the pool and slink into the gently slopping waves, perfectly cold and crisp. The temperature outside is a perfect 80, the chlorine of the water harsh, but the good kind, against your goose bumped skin. The sounds of the splashing from the giant waterfall cavern, from the rushing slide, drowns out most if not all of the laughter and shouts from your classmates.

 

Time has this way of slipping into nothing when you’re buzzed, and so soon, everyone is out of the pool. They've shifted inside the parlor room on the east wing of the house, where Dave has transferred the music so people can dance. It’s just past midnight, the magic hour, and you have decided to stay alone in the hot tub. Hiding in plain sight, really. You stare up at the brilliant, gaseous stars that you can see so clearly on this hill at the top of the world. Close your eyes. Breathe slow.

 

There are these moments, sometimes, even when you otherwise feel like dying. The purely sensory ones, the ones that make you remember why you should stay alive.

 

This is crazy, you staying here this long, trying to hold this out. You should just leave, it’s not like at this point anyone would notice if you wandered away, and you will have successfully avoided an _actual_  face off with –

 

All of a sudden, Dave is standing before you, half naked and fresh faced. _Getting into the hot tub_ , setting his shades down on the ridge of the stone. He looks damn good, and you hate yourself for admitting it; hate how weak you are, this weakness you have for beautiful boys, and Dave’s hair practically glistens from the light shining underneath the water's surface.

 

“Hey.”

 

This same light ricochets off his cheekbones as he stares at you. Harsh words want to spill from your mouth, but he says first:

 

“You enjoying yourself? Didn’t think I’d see you tonight. Or last night. I am sorry about your friend, she sounded like she was really cool.”

 

“How do you know what she sounded like?”

 

He did say he downloaded the podcast versions of your broadcasts, but did he really actually sit there and  _listen to them_?

 

“It’s fine,” you say, blushing beside yourself. “I didn’t know her that well. It had been almost a year since we’d talked and we didn’t even talk for that long. It’s not like we were ever gonna meet each other. She was virtual, just a phone number.”

 

“I know people are paranoid about robots replacing our brains with nuts and bolts and making us void of any sentience, but virtual shit can be real shit. It _is_  real shit, like psychologically I think. You think I don’t wonder who the hundred thousand people watching me on my webshow actually  _are_? I mean yeah a lot of it could be bots but they could also be Alaskan ice fishers watching me on a Nokia flip phone. Do actually have a guy who does that, we talk in the comments, his name’s Jacoby, he’s deep as shit.”

 

You then segue into a not-as-awkward-as-you-anticipated talk about the weirdest “regulars” you’ve ever had, the annoyances of upkeeping websites. What is this? What is happening? You are talking somewhat civilly, if not dismissively avoiding the tension boiling in the water between you. As your buzz slow burns off, you decide you need to scale it back, and move back. He keeps drifting back and forth in the water, coming forth a little more each time.

 

“What do you even ‘do’ on your YouTube show?” you ask him.

 

“Nothin’.” He splashes himself gently, absently. “Just turn on the webcam while I’m living my life, basically. The stuff does a lot of the work for me, and it’s all my Bro’s, so I can’t take that much credit. They do like listenin’ to me sing, though.”

 

“See, people like you are the reason I don’t hopelessly abandon my profession. AM talk radio will never fucking die because our craft is serious, we understand more about the physics of sound and our words actually have to have _meaning_ to carry us through. Unlike Justin Bieber knock-offs, like you.”

 

“Yeah see it’s the exact same thing we’re doing, radio’s the same as a web cam show, just O.G. and a hell of a lot more work. I respect that. You and I are alike y’know, Karkat.”

 

“I really don’t think so. And anyway, being an Internet only celebrity is stupid because it’s not actual collateral, a three year old with an honorary degree from Harvard could do it and we’re lucky to get pennies for our views and clicks. Unless you're Pewdiefuck or someone like that, it doesn’t inherently improve anything in your actual life like, I don’t know, an actual, historically salaried career does? And what’s the point if it’s not making your life better?”

 

“Hm.”

 

“Don’t get me wrong, the station is fun. But.”

 

“You’re unhappy there?”

 

“No, just. Stressed, I guess. I think people are starting to really like us and all, it’s just that I have no plan for this thing. I stand up there and babble on until people stop wanting to listen.”

 

“Maybe that’s your thing. That’s a talent, sort of.”

 

“Yeah, but the motherfucking problem is I can’t speak to any more than three people at once _in public_.” Your face burns hotter. “You were there, that one time.”

 

“Yeah that was pretty bad, dude.”

 

You gave the student speech at your class’s middle school grad, where Dave was somewhere in the stands full of hundreds with Terezi’s family to watch her, and you don’t want to get into it, but you had so much vomit embedded in the threading of your suit jacket afterwards, you had to throw it out.

 

“But the cool thing about ‘the times’ these days," Dave says, "is that you don’t have to be a people person to be famous, and that’s not saying you’re ugly or anything." Is it not? "Not at all, actually. It’s that even for a person with a tragic dislike for human contact like yourself, there’s hope for you yet.”

 

 

Then:

 

“Nobody believes me when I say this especially not John who is supposed to  _know_ these things but. Despite the whole thing where I talk too much. I’m actually kinda shy, too.”

 

You can’t believe he’s doing this to you. Again. This is stupid. Dave moves through the water around you like he was born in it, his limbs causing laps to blanket your shoulders, your heart.

 

“What are you doing out here?” you demand suddenly.

 

Dave looks taken a little aback, but enjoying it. “Like on earth? In general?”

 

“Is it common for the host to abandon the rest of his party?”

 

“Maybe I wanted to see what kind of party you were having out here.”

 

You try and combat the flirtiness (?!?) of that statement, remember the telling-him-off-for-the-SBHJ-drawings plan you had last night when you looked at them.

 

“No, you wanna know why this is not happening? Why we’re not ‘partying together?”

 

“Oh, please tell me.”

 

“Because you’re an asshole, for what you’ve always done with Terezi and for basically publishing my location to god knows how many people on the Internet, not to mention that potbellied caricature.”

 

Dave pauses, nods.

 

“It was a dumb joke,” he says. “Definitely not meant to put you in any danger though. If anybody shows up at your crib looking in y’all’s garbage, let me know. Dirk can snipe like a motherfucker. I didn’t just tell you that.” Then, “Took the post about you down a couple hours ago.”

 

Then,

 

"Terezi and I broke up, anyway."

 

Then,

 

“C’mere. Put these on.”

 

From behind you, he wraps his arms around you for the Spectacles sitting on the spa’s edge, placing them on your face. Your heart is racing because  _are they broken up, officially?_ and his skin smells so devastatingly good, so close to you. On the screens of the shades, Dave shows you several of the drawings he makes of himself by pressing the next button on a handle through a slide show of some of his  ~~best~~  worst work. They’re absolutely disgusting. Bleeding eyes, gaping, jarring holes in his nose, red blotches on his skin, jagged teeth and exaggerated drawl in text bubbles. Drooling all over everything. Freakishly skinny, like, starving.

 

“I can’t even begin to imagine what you see when you look in the mirror. Fuck.”

 

“Trust me you don’t wanna know, babe.”

 

Dave is dangerously close, arms still making like they’re circling around you. You make the grave mistake of turning around to face him. He’s smiling, sideways contagious and fucking gorgeous, as he slips a hand behind you to get rid of the shades. You’re not tipsy anymore, drunk now off the high splashing bubbles in your face and the seventeen year old pretty boy, wet and open to you in lifeguard-red short shorts. He’s your ex’s ex boyfriend and he's _Dave Strider_ and that makes him Off Fucking Limits. But  objectively, it’s hot in here, and it's been five months and twenty three days, and you're horny as _shit._

 

“Don’t call me babe,” you tell him suddenly.

 

He just stares at you, through you, inching closer.

 

“Let me apologize for you,” he says eventually.

 

“Okay. Go ahead, apologize.”

 

“Okay. Let me kiss you right now.”

 

“Fuck you, no! Why on earth would I do that? It makes me sick to even  _think_  of sharing your saliva any more than I already have.”

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“What?”

 

“You want me to, don’t you?”

 

“I really, really don’t.”

 

But you do; you're staring at his lips and your voice betrays you all breathless when you say it, so he does. Closes the space between you, threads his slick hands along your jaw and into your hair. Bites your bottom lip, slips his tongue into your mouth, then thrums it along the abused skin from his bites.

 

“Oh.” Kiss. “Shit.” Surprisingly passionate, overwhelming kiss. “Why is this happening.”

 

“Just go with it.”

 

He pushes your lighter body through the storming, bubbling water up against the stone wall of the tub, pins your hands against it underwater. Keeps kissing you, then lifts a hand to massage your jawline, your neck. Your trembling free hand dares to touch his stringy, ice blonde hair as he ducks his head to his kiss to your neck. He sucks hard and it hurts so good, you yank at the roots in your fist.

 

“Mmfm,” he mumbles.

 

“Are you trying to give me a hickey?!”

 

“’Course not.” He speaks low, wet lips against your throat. “But don’t pull on my hair like that again, darlin’. You don’t wanna know what comes with it.”

 

But you do, god this is wrong, but you always have. It’s been so long since you’ve been kissed so damn good, and he's been toying with you without even knowing it for so long, and anyone could come out and see you right now. That’s when he hoists you up onto his hips, stands up, and carries you straddling him face forward, up the private stairs to his master bedroom’s balcony, where no one in the parlor can see you disappearing.

 

In the dark, you imagine you see Terezi watching from the hedges, grinning at you two, at what has formed in her absence. You know you’re imagining it, but is this the stuff of dreams, or nightmares? Dave splays you onto his crimson duvet, shows you.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Five is already complete but I'm going to work on Six and Seven a little bit before I post it <3


	5. Chapter 5

 

 _In the desert, you_ _sucked my finger_  
_It wasn't meant to be, it was like water from leather_  
_Oh my god, what can I pay you to stop?_  
_So in my desert, what was the nature of your_  
_Visit to my domain, business or pleasure?_  
_Oh my god, you just don't care if I drop_

— Kishi Bashi, “[Atticus In The Desert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcptWjmXOdo)”

 

♋️

 

Terezi doesn’t know it, but she’s armed your nemesis with an arsenal against you. That thing where your current partner talks about their ex’s personal life to you because the ways they fucked up are relevant to the state of your relationship? And then you walk around knowing weirdly personal shit about that person, see each other constantly, and you both know that you know all the things?

 

That’s always been you and Dave, and fuck, it’s Sunday morning. You slept here. “Here” is currently the entertainment room of the Strider estate, on a seven-seater dreambed couch covered in tangled sheets, towels and socks. Flush behind you is Dave, who is wrapped around you, arms and legs. Given your small size, you love being little spoon; everyone ever has the advantage of being taller than you, and you're attracted to the kinds of people who have no problem encasing you entirely, squeezing you tight. The problem with that though is, you love to be held but you simultaneously hate the emotional vulnerability leading up to that, the trusting someone enough to do it. Being little doesn’t make you weak, it just makes you predetermined, designed for a certain caliber of comfort.

 

Plus when you’re high – you're still coming down from all you smoked last night, god help you – the skin to skin contact feels damn good.

 

Time has occurred to you in blurred moments instead of actually linear sequences; Dave does not seem in those moments like the enigma you’ve always known, but rather, this person who met you where you were, guided you through crazy ebbs and flows of pleasure last night. This strange valley you're existing in has only been heightened by the weed you hit from the dab rig instead of a regular bong, last night. You remembered seeing the glass contraption, blowtorch and wax, going around at the party on Friday; what Nepeta and Equius were trying to explain to you once, how you can extract the concentrate, melt it over a hot nail, vaporize it.

 

Dave set the rig up for you in his underwear last night, after carrying you all the way up the balcony stairs and taking you in bed for what would only be round one, and how ridiculous did he look in just boxers and mismatched socks, one covered in jack-o-latterns and the other bearing Elsa from Frozen.

 

You understand there’s a certain social barrier broken between two people who get _that_ high together; when you get so high that you can vibe with anyone, even your worst enemy, and how that experience and what you’re feeling viscerally bonds you. And the things he made you feel. Every lowdown video you’ve ever watched guiltily on your laptop put you out on your ass last night, and this morning. He was so talkative, scoping out what you liked and just going there. To put it lightly you were speechless.

 

You got so tangled up in him, you’re still here.

 

It’s 8 a.m., your phone tells you, and Dave sleeps soundly. You leave his body on the couch to attempt to find one of the bathrooms, and actually say _holy shit_  out loud as you enter the glass-walled walkway. This view of the hills, golden sun shining over them, the glistening pool, is goddamn heavenly. After you finagle your way to a toilet, make your way back down the complex system of halls, you realize that you haven’t seen Dave's burly custodian around. Is he really just gone this often? You and your dad can’t speak to each other without awkwardness, sure, but he does come home every night.

 

Dave does have house cleaning butler robots to take care of everything, so you don’t feel that sorry for him. They’re here now, in fact; you’ve seen videos of these sleek, bubbly, capable anthropomorphic metal things, trotting and rolling around the research labs of the top robotics programs in the country, organizing, telling jokes, unloading dishwashers. But to see them in action, cleaning up the mess from the party last night, in real life? You’re trying not to geek out so much. They recognize you, too, as you pass them, calling you “Master Vantas” upon scanning your retinas. That’s not creepy.

 

You enter the entertainment room again, your heart jumpstarting and kicking wildly when you find that Dave is awake now. Quietly preparing himself another dab in nothing but his socks, it turns out that the freckles are all over his body, stars, constellations, that spatter of dark ones along his inner thigh. It’s so unfair that the same obnoxious guy who used to press his foot against the back of your chair in computer lab,  _just so,_ not so much it hurt or was even a real bother, but just _there_ so you knew it was, gets to look like this.

 

“Hey.”

 

He speaks to you first. You really should be getting out of this mess, but:

 

“Don’t go yet,” he says.

 

“Huh?”

 

He smiles.

 

“Dirk and Jake flew back to Massachusetts yesterday and my Bro’s gone all week for a set in Ibiza, so. Wanna go again?”

 

He takes you on the couch after taking another dab, and you decline one for yourself, as you really can’t stay here incapacitated for the rest of your life. In the midst of things, he says:

 

“’Rezi told me how she used to top you.”

 

“Oh my god, shut _up._ ”

 

“You really gonna try’n deny it right now?”

 

“Don’t talk about her while—fuck—”

 

“Why, that turn you on a l’il bit?”

 

If he wasn’t making you breathless, you could explain.

 

“It does, doesn’t it.” He laughs the most beautiful, rapturous sound. “You like Krabby patties, don’t you, Squidward.”

 

“Fucking fuck you _._ ”

 

 

♋️

 

 

Okay, now it’s eleven thirty. It’s a holiday weekend, so you’ll tell your family you crashed at Sollux or Nepeta’s in Ensena because they had a family barbeque or something, if they even ask. Though won’t Kankri hear from his friends that you were at the pool party?

 

You’re still on the couch in the entertainment room, legs tangled with his, his just slightly bobbing, skin still damp. You’d get up, but you’re physically exhausted. Honestly kind of in aftershock. You knew you might like this whole boy thing hypothetically, but damn, turns out you really, _really_ like this and with _him_ of all people and what will Terezi think and –

 

Dave is staring at you, Spectacles over his eyes. He's appearified a joint out of nowhere.

 

“What’s up, buttercup,” he says.

 

“Buttercup?”

 

He nods, clouds billowing from his nose. “Something is. Stirring, over there.” He makes wave-y motions with his hands through the smoke. “I can feel it, whatever it is, so come on out with it.”

 

You sigh, frustrated with his flippancy.

 

“We need to talk about Terezi.”

 

“Right. Okay so the thing about it is, I always knew you were better for her. You’re a little closer to her age and she’s kinda inconsistent romantically sometimes, kinda always wants what she can’t have, so she was well up for the challenge that is all of this genetic blessed godness and conniption of irony and dodgy feelings. But yeah, I wasn't able to give her what she wanted, and I should've just told her that all along, but I was being selfish and competitive and stupid and I'm - more into guys. And I’m sorry you were hurt in the process.” He says it all so smoothly, you’re surprised. Wonder if he actually means it. It’s hard not to think so, under your circumstances. “But what else is bothering you?”

 

“To be frank? I don’t understand why you—why this —” You start over. And _is_ he more into guys? You never knew. “Why you want _me_.”

 

“Well I don’t know why you’re calling yourself Frank all of a sudden, but to be honest? You were the last person on earth I thought would go for me. Initially and all, I did it, as the kids used to say, for the Vine.”

 

This upsets you more than you think it should. “So what, you and John fucking Egbert sat around one day taking bets on whether or not I’d put out for you?”

 

“We kinda did, yeah.”

 

“How predictably chauvinistic of you.”

 

“Man, this may be the worst fucking match up in the history of the universe, like the books will nigh compare us to such well-unsuited duos as Romeo and the dagger he stabs himself with and Xanax and remembering what the fuck you even did the last three days. But look at us now. Havin' a heart to heart, cuddled up with the laundry my Bro ain’t folded in months.”

 

It was certainly not ideally romantic, but it was fascinating watching Dave work his magic - and by magic you mean how high his fucking tolerance is and not - whatever. You’d heard of his toking talents from Terezi and others for years, always tried not to sound so interested. His brother Dirk owns a water bong you have to climb a ladder to take a hit from. Plus, weed makes you horny.

 

Plus, you think it’s kind of hot when he slips and an ‘ain’t’ or a ‘y’all’ finds its way into his prerecorded California dudebro shtick.

 

“Look," he keeps on going, "I ain’t mean to make you feel used, or like you’re not worth a handsome gentleman courting you and taking you out for salads. Hitting on the wrong people is kinda just something I do. It keeps happening. Not saying it's right, but it's my lot in life.”

 

Which segues into Dave opening up to you about why he’s “so into hookup sex,” and it hurts your ears to hear about it at first, but eventually, you find him so unafraid to talk about it that it ends up also fascinating. He says it has a lot to do with his not-so-appropriate upbringing. His Bro is actually the worst role model. You realize that a sizable portion of his dudebro identity is made up of “the cool guy” who has psychologically analyzed the effects of what was most likely child abuse so thoroughly, so adult-like, that he’s “so cool” making jokes about his alcoholic guardian leaving his brother and him alone in the apartment for five days when Dirk was seven and he was four.

 

“My Bro wasn’t always rich. Before we moved to L.A., all three of us and Jake were cramped in a six hundred dollar hole in the wall in Beaumont. Bro had his puppeting gig but we've started to suspect it was a cover up for some kind of pimping scheme. It isn't now, and I know he wasn’t the face of it, he prob’ly did think that shit was dead wrong and definitely would’ve killed anyone who tried to put his kids through it - fucker has ways with a katana – but he needed the money. Our hood was small as shit and you did what you had to to fight for your land. And your gun rights. But Bro just used swords.

 

“Apparently we were homeless for a while. Dirk says Bro was trying really hard to pretend we were just going to the grocery store when the bank foreclosed on our ranks. ‘Alright kids get in the van, don’t question why we’re taking two weeks worth of stuff in duffel bags and also all my heavy DJ equipment, leave the furniture the repo has a warrant out, oh no Jake the homeless shetler’s just on the way to the store. What are you talking about, this isn’t a homeless shelter. We’re not homeless.’”

 

“Jesus.”

 

“’This is aisle seven and those guys under cardboard boxes over there aren't smoking meth.’”

 

“ _Jesus_.”

 

“Then when I was six, he got a gig as a porn star in the Valley. Drove us all the way here. Story goes, we’ve been cushy ever since.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“As cardiac arrest, dude. He came out here a single father with three weird as hell spawn slash orphans and a penchant for not wanting to be dirt fucking poor his whole life. The porn thing was—I mean, I don’t know much about it. Apparently Jake has seen it. He’s not really related to us, so. Says Bro only did it for a couple months until he could network his way into a music job. Anyway now he makes $300,000 a year as a producer. The moral of the story is, my Bro is unstoppable.”

 

“Why do you call him that?”

 

“What?”

 

“Your ‘Bro.’ Isn’t he your Dad?”

 

“That’s classified.”

 

You’d assume by now that Dave is a foster child who lies about his family being blood sometimes to keep conversations short and sympathies far. But looking at the three of them there’s no goddamn way the Striders aren’t flesh. They all have those jarring eyes, those corner’s edge cheekbones, that salient way of speech. Those legs.

 

“So what’s the deal with Jake, then?” you say. “He wandered over for a play date one day and his parents hated him enough to let him stay forever?”

 

“Basically. He was this ward of the state who went to our school and whose only known relative Granddad died when he was three all tragic anime backstory and shit. Dirk and Jake were obsessed with each other even back then, Jake had more clothes in Dirk’s closet than Dirk did and yes I do mean that as homosexual metaphor. He was at our house so much that yeah he just basically started living with us.

 

“Anyway long story short one day Jake gets officially kicked out of his then foster parents’ house after being shuffled around some four or five times I don’t know and somehow my Bro was qualified for his adoption slash guardianship. This was when he got sober after the whole leaving us in the apartment thing. I do remember us deep cleaning the house with him like child slaves when the social workers came to approve Jake's stay. He made it into some game for us to play.”

 

“I can’t tell if your life was really so tragic or if you’re just putting it on for sport.”

 

Dave pauses then, smiling at you.

 

“What?” you prompt.

 

“You just do this thing when you talk that like. Hold on. I’m gonna record it and show it to you—”

 

“Don’t you fucking dare—”

 

“C’mon, KK, let the iThrone7 paint a portrait of your bug-eyed visage.”

 

“Don’t call me KK.” You cover your face with your hands. “And fuck you for saying I have bug eyes.”

 

“They’re cute.”

 

He really should not be calling you that.

 

“I just wanted to let you know that even though _this_ somehow happened,” you say, and _he’s still not wearing pants,_ goddamn it. “I’m not.” You groan. “I’m not secretly gay or anything macabre like that.”

 

“Oh.” Dave’s expression is unreadable behind the shades. “Are you not?”

 

“But even if I was, I mean, come on,” you continue, furious. “You? Seriously, me? What the fuck, these are not the kinds of decisions we agreed upon making.”

 

His gaze flickers to your waistline for a moment, and you blush.

 

“See I think you might be kinda gay for me, though.”

 

“I’m not!”

 

“Doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay overall or in general, just within this specific contextual session.”

 

“No, look, this was just a high-induced hormonal teenage shitfuck of an entanglement that we never, and I mean literally, never ever have to tell another breathing human about. When I leave here you will go back to ignoring me and being your usual tool self, do you hear me? Unless—oh, you motherfucker.”

 

“What?”

 

“John already knows, right? So this is like a thing? Now everyone’s going to think that I’m ‘in’ on you and your brother’s tragic free love brigade.”

 

“Damn, we should patent that. Tragic free love brigade. I can see it on the backs of black leather jackets in applique with roses and shit. Wow.”

 

You want to punch him in his (handsome) mouth, but then he's using that mouth to kiss you _adieu_.

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

Your goodbye kiss lasts all of another _hour_ and then it hits you that it’s almost one and, despite his insistence, you’ve definitely overstayed your welcome. Your shitty rusted car is parked in the richest neighborhood in town. You wonder if there haven’t already been several calls to authorities with your license plate number in tow from the local middle-aged neighborhood watch vigilantes.

 

As you crawl out of his mansion, drive towards home, you call Kanaya. You can’t even believe you have to explain what you just did.

 

“Kanaya, I did a thing.”

 

“ _Okay._ _Is everything okay?”_

 

“No.”

 

“ _Should I ask if you would like to talk about it?”_

 

“Should you ask—I’m calling you right now, aren’t I?”

 

So you told her about how he whisked you up out of his jacuzzi and into his giant master and from there to the couch where you stayed, and how he did that one thing, among others.

 

“ _Karkat. Um, I.”_

 

“I know.”

 

“ _Was he any good?”_

 

“Seriously, that’s the first thing you can think to ask me? Okay, fine, fucking.” You sigh. “Yes. He was.”

 

“ _Oh my.”_

 

“Terezi doesn’t know?”

 

“ _Is that a question or a statement.”_

 

“And honestly I was just really fucking worked up over this last week with him and it became this like macerated obsession over the course of twelve hours.”

 

“ _That_ _is_ _a long time.”_

 

“It is!”

 

“ _Do you think he’s going to tell anyone?”_

 

“He said he wasn’t, though of course John already knows, the conjoined twins. But I can’t imagine this would be something he wants to brag about. Nobody ever knows who he’s _really_ with even though there’s talk. If someone straight up asks me or something, I’ll just deny it? I don’t know. Fuck. Keep your ears to the ground?”

 

“ _I will.”_ There’s a silence. _“So. How, um, do you feel.”_

 

“I don’t know. I don’t even think I wanna _know_ why it felt so—I think part of me wanted it, really, really wanted it because I just wanted to, no I _had_ to know exactly what it is she left me for. My god, are you listening to me? What on earth does this make me?”

 

“ _What do you mean?”_

 

“It’s like I miss my ex-girlfriend so I wanted to be her for a night? That is so fucked.”

 

“ _No,_ _it actually sort of_ _makes sense.”_

 

“Show your work.”

 

“ _It’s natural_ _that_ _you were curious_ _. And. You were always asking and trying to prod around into how good their sex life was.”_

 

“Excuse me, I was not ‘prodding,’ I was trying to understand the scope of what my lover was expecting.”

 

“ _There’s also the fact that you stare at his ass a lot.”_

 

“...Yeah. There is that.”

 

“ _Do you want him to do it again?”_

 

“Objectively? Yes. A hundred fucking times, help me. But I can’t, because he’s Dave, the Dave from eighth grade who autotuned my failed graduation speech and yeah, he pretty much only showed it to Terezi and thought I might _like it_ , the ass clown. But it sucked. And I already know I don’t like most of his friends, it’s not like I wanna _hang out_ with him and Tavros and John. I think my brain might rot, might lose an IQ point or seventy. But I know all these _things_ about him now, things he told me last night and this morning and I just. I know it was just one day and I won’t actually matter to him in real life.”

 

“ _Karkat.”_

 

“And I don’t want anyone knowing about this because it makes me look like I’ll take whatever scraps I can get, and I don’t—I don’t wanna be like that.”

 

“ _I understand_ _.”_

 

“And Kanaya?”

 

“ _Yes.”_

 

“I’m bi.”

 

“ _I know.”_

 

“Okay. Well, thank you, for. Business as usual.”

 

She laughs. It makes you feel the tiniest bit better, if only for a moment. A thin line of sun through the clouds.

 

“ _Always.”_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been able to post this all pretty quickly because I was just on vacation, but now I'm back home and it's back to the grind TT_TT 
> 
> As of posting this (12/19), Chapter Six is done, but I'm trying to stay a whole chapter ahead of myself. So as soon as Chapter Seven is done, I'll update. Let me know what you think so far <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Merry Christmas](https://adiostoreadoormat.tumblr.com/post/181375175318/i-was-cleaning-my-room-this-morning-and-i-came-to) :o)  
> 

_I couldn’t gage your fears_  
_I can’t relate to my peers_  
_I’d rather live outside_  
_I’d rather chip my pride than_  
_Lose my mind out here_  
_Maybe I’m a fool_  
_Maybe I should move and settle_  
_Two kids and a swimming pool_  
_I’m not brave_

\- Frank Ocean, "[Seigfried](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWgpBlz16-s)"

 

 

♋️

 

 

Days go by. Then a week. No one at school knows. Terezi, as far as you know, doesn’t know. She would’ve said something.

 

Right?

 

People know you were at the pool party. Kanrki asked you about it Monday after Meenah reported seeing you there. You told him you just went for an hour, ignoring his questions about “who even invited you,” and Meenah talked to you briefly at school on Tuesday morning, during which you found out, trying not to sound like you _needed_ to know, that Dave had apparently told everyone he turned in early. John was in charge of seeing people out of the house.

 

No one seems to be questioning that story. It makes you really fucking paranoid the first few days, because Terezi hasn’t made eye contact with you (now that she _can_ ) since your last conversation or the incredible thing that just transpired. Does she know? Is she pissed? Dave is also not an apple in her eyesight; you’re avoiding the shit out of him, which is relatively easy since you don’t have classes together and don’t hang out with any of the same people. Surprisingly, he’s not approaching you either; even after two weeks have passed.

 

Sometimes he does catch your eye and smile, sly and sideways like you both share this secret, and _you do,_ but he’s too coy and gentlemanly to mention it. It hasn’t left you, the way he turned you out; it’s been a bitch and a half trying not to think about his body at night. But having him acknowledge it with words, to your face? Possibly getting a repeat? You want it, or you would in another universe where he was disconnected from everyone. But talking to him at school now all casual-like, as "friends” — are you friends? You sure know a whole damn lot about his past and his family — might draw people’s attention to the truth.

 

Rose is not currently privy to your boy-on-boy. You kind of want to keep it that way, because you know she’ll just ask you to have a conversation with Dave about what it all _means._ She does know that something’s different, though; you can tell by the way she’s looking at you, smiling in that way. She hasn't pressed her suspicion about who you're doing what with. Kanaya probably thinks that you should talk to Dave too, but she hasn’t said anything about it. She’s like you, in that she’d sometimes rather be comfortable in ignorance than deal with potential fallout from an earthed secret. Her relationship with Rose might be as healthy as they come, but you remember when she was younger. Hiding runs in both of your blood.

 

Meanwhile, The Quadrant has been going swimmingly. The eleven p.m. call time has your team feeling re-energized. Developing the beta for the The Quadrant app took you and your crew about two weeks to loosely cement: Equius and Sollux developed the mini server, database and encryption while you and Nepeta focused on the UX/UI. You pooled what little money you all could spare to boost not only the quadrant.com server, but also create the space for the mobile one in the first place. Your friends at Team Adorabloodthirsty love you so much, and you them, it’s fucking fearful.

 

The new addition to the Quadrant network is part dating app, re: Cindr, but not as shitty, with registered Quadrant users able to swipe left to ‘ship themselves’ with other users; no selfies allowed on profiles, but they’re able to use words and art in bios to share more about themselves. It’s also part illustrated shipping wall, though it isn’t connected to the larger wall on the main site, you aren't WhatPumpkin devs; instead, the app wall has taken on its own mini life. Your app is also part social media, with connections to the larger Quadrant forums. And best of all, thanks Equius, app users are able to listen to almost every archived broadcast of the show to date.

 

The app isn’t perfect, by a long shot, it’s coded by four broke students and Sollux pesters you fuming every other day when something inevitably squicks out of whack, but it’s more than any of you imagined it would be when you first cracked the idea.

 

The downside of your work right now? While the steady stream of listeners is hells of flattering, and so good for your resume, the number of random calls you’re getting a day to your personal iThrone is increasing so much, other people are starting to notice. They go off constantly in class; while you’re trying and failing to catch up on sleep; while you sit with Kanaya and Rose at lunch; they’re concerned. You’ve already got 63 numbers blocked, and it doesn’t matter. New ones keep piping on up.

 

They started with Terezi’s broadcast and ticked with Dave’s interruption, but you know neither of them are sophisticated enough, with hacking or mobile technology anyway, to orchestrate something like this against you. Specifically. They just somehow unfortunately triggered these other annoying fucks.

 

Terezi may’ve felt jaded towards the end of your relationship, but she would never stoop to this kind of revenge. Dave said it himself in the pool, and offered again six times the rest of your night, that he and the Strider clan would personally see to the ends of anyone who threatens your property, doxxes your real identity, or “harms a curly hair on your head.” You aren’t sure you’d take him up on this. Dirk and his Bro kind of scare you to think about in defense mode. They’d probably actually kill someone.

 

Answering the calls is futile. As soon as you pick up, sometimes cursing violently, the calls drop. Tracing the numbers — even deep web searches — reveal that they’re probably all burners, with varying area codes. Some of the calls even come in unknown or blocked. You should probably just change your number at this point, especially if this shit is just going to continue, making you lose the valuable sleep you just _gained_ with the time slot change. But you also don’t want to let whoever's doing this run you.

 

One Thursday, three weeks post Labor Day, you think that shit has started to reach a bittersweet new normal: Dave and Terezi are officially broken up and you have to avoid them both, but you’re okay with it if it means you get to keep what little remains of your dignity. Kankri is still a piece of shit and Cronus really skeeves you out, but your brother’s not being injured by the guy so far as you can tell. The fact that you can’t use your phone for very well more than hour before somebody calls you is not ideal, but your phone is free of malware so you’ll take what you can get. Your depression is…well. The nights you spend alone after work are still pretty harrowing.

 

And then:

 

In the ten minute passing period before 7th, an origami dragon falls out of your locker when you open it. Unfolding it reveals one of Terezi’s brightly colored scribble-drawings. It’s a landscape of you and her standing in the bonsai tree garden made by the Japanese Arts/Anime Club at the corner of the north wing. It’s especially sophomore territory, the farthest place away from the senior lockers. She used to always draw you the places she wanted to meet you on campus. It’s seemingly an olive branch, but why now? She hasn’t looked at you since you basically called her a revolving door.

 

What if this is her wanting to tell you she knows your secret? What if the first thing she says to you is “Did you kiss my ex?”

 

You want to ignore the start of her game, but something occurs to you. She usually sent you on a quest to find the little things she’d hidden around campus on the path to her drawing location. She usually just pestered you through the whole thing, but as of having her vision restored, she now has the over the shoulder view of the freshmen-sophomore hallway cameras that she gets as a “perk” of her front desk aide position. She always told you that she would use said cameras to guide you along your quests, if she could see.

 

gallowsCallibrator began pestering carcinoGeneticist at 14:01:49 

GC: LOOK UP

 

There’s an origami frog hanging from the ceiling right above you.

 

CG: I’M SORRY I SAID THAT THING ABOUT YOU AND DAVE.

CG: I KNOW THIS IS LATE. I JUST FIGURED YOU WERE TOO PISSED TO WANT TO TALK TO ME. THAT’S NOT AN EXCUSE. I REALLY AM SORRY.

CG: CLEARLY YOU’VE FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT THOUGH, AT LEAST ENOUGH TO BREAK INTO MY LOCKER TO SLIP ME A DRAGON AND SOMEHOW TAPE A CAPTIVE AMPHIBIAN TO THE CEILING. SERIOUSLY, HOW DO YOU GET THOSE THINGS UP THERE?

CG: ALSO, WHILE I HAVE YOU? THESE BULLSHIT EASTER EGG SCAVENGER HUNTS YOU USED TO SEND ME ON WERE BEGRUDGINGLY FUN AND CHALLENGING MONTHS AGO, WHEN WE WERE GOING OUT. NOW? I THINK YOU’RE JUST MOCKING ME. HOW THE INFECTED, BLISTERING FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO REACH THAT FROG? ARE YOU EXPECTING ME TO JUMP FOR IT? THE RAT IN THE MAZE IS NOT AMUSED.

 

An especially tall administrator you can’t remember the name of is strolling by.

 

“Excuse me, could you get that for me? I think someone is vandalizing the school with these things. Oh, I’ll take it. Thanks.”

 

GC: CH43T3R

 

Her word choice reverberates a tiny bit of heartbreak. You take it in stride, play it cool, or at least you attempt:

 

CG: YOU KNOW, I’M NOT GOING TO READ THIS, I THINK.

GC: 4WW COM3 ON

GC: YOU WORK3D SO H4RD FOR 1T

GC: YOU D3S3RV3 TH3 M1R4CL3 TH4T 1S MY 4RTWORK FOR YOUR TO1L

CG: WHAT IS IT THAT YOU REALLY WANNA SAY TO ME, TEREZI?

GC: UGH

GC: 1F YOUD JUST R34D TH3 NOT3 YOUD KNOW

 

Instead you stoop down to the floor in the hall, press the frog’s little butt, watch it hop.

 

CG: I THINK I’LL LET IT FULFILL ITS TRUE PURPOSE INSTEAD.

CG: GO ON, BE FREE! QUICK! TEREZI CAN’T USE YOU FOR HER SCHEMES ANYMORE!

GC: >:P

 

You stand back up, gaze into the small black dome on the ceiling, where she can see you from. Wave once, stalwart. Then walk.

 

carcinoGeneticist ceased pestering gallowsCallibrator at 02:07:39 

 

 

♋️

 

 

After school, you're waiting for Kankri in that spot where no one can see you - your car has no gas and you spent way too much of your money on the server, so you hitched a ride - when he calls you saying he has to take Cronus home first, and then he'll be back to get you. You tell him not to contract herpes in the back seat. He gasps and hangs up on you.

 

Dave pesters you moments later. You think it's strange that he and Terezi both contacted you today, after three weeks of nothing. Do you look especially good today or something? If looking good conventionally is even a thing you're capable of. You have been losing weight still, and you did more to your hair this morning than usual, and these are your better jeans.

 

turntechGodhead began pestering carcinoGeneticist at 15:25:16 

 

TG: sup

CG: SUP?

CG: I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT MAKING OUT WITH YOU, IF THAT'S WHAT THIS IS.

TG: well damn im just jolly thanks for asking and i havent thought about making out with you at all like at night or in my dreams or anything

TG: how are you

TG: this is a friendship call btw

CG: ARE WE FRIENDS?

CG: I MEAN, I KNOW A LOT OF PERSONAL SHIT ABOUT YOU NOW FOR SOME REASON, BUT YOU DON'T EXACTLY SIT WITH ME AT LUNCH.

TG: i would if you let me

TG: rose and kanaya are a sarcastic delight

TG: youre cool too i guess

TG: what are you up to

CG: STANDING BESIDE THE DUMPSTERS OUT BY THE FOOTBALL FIELD, WAITING FOR MY BROTHER TO PULL THE STICK OUT OF HIS ASS LONG ENOUGH TO PICK ME UP AND TAKE ME HOME.

TG: haha your brother really does have a stick

TG: you can see it all up in his keister when he adjusts the chest high waistband on those tight as fuck mom jeans

TG: you should really teach him how to dress better

CG: MY BROTHER IS BEYOND ALL HOPE OR SALVATION AND I'M INSULTED THAT YOU WOULD ASSUME OTHERWISE.

TG: why are you out by the dumpsters tho

TG: isnt that where the junkies hang out before first period

TG: where the cafeteria dumps the hot dog water slash bulimia barf

TG: notoriously empty this time of the afternoon

CG: YEAH, THAT EMPTINESS IS THE POINT. KANKRI IS SO EMBARRASSED TO BE SEEN WITH ME, AND I HIM, THAT THIS WHERE WE MEET WHEN WE HAVE TO FACE THE UNFORTUNATE REALITY THAT IS OUR SHARED DOMICILE.

TG: word

TG: im still on campus

TG: do you want a ride home

 

That would necessitate someone possibly seeing you get into the car with him. Although, as you have just established, no one can see you out here. But you don't want Dave knowing exactly where you live. That is too personal. You sincerely doubt he and Kankri are in cahoots enough for him to know already.

 

CG: IT'S FINE. BARRING CRONUS KIDNAPPING HIM AND DOING ALL OF US A FAVOR, HE SHOULD BE BACK IN HALF AN HOUR.

CG: MAYBE.

TG: wait he left you at school so he could bang with cronus

TG: hang i mean

TG: shit

TG: they could be banging i mean i dont wanna burst any bubbles or tarnish the already sparkling image you have of your bro

TG: but cronus doesnt hang with anyone like that unless some shits going down

TG: your bro doesnt strike me as dickly tho

TG: or anything really

TG: unless that dick is comin from jesus christ or the word of god

TG: slidin in and out of that righteous mouth like the psalms he sings on sundays

TG: yeah knowing kankri theyre definitely not banging

 

Damn it. Dave is actually making you smile with this shit. It's hard not to when roasting Kankri with mutual acquaintances is one of your favorite pastimes. How did he know?

 

But the point: you meant it when you said that you didn't want to talk about making out with him. Ever. Keeping your distance so far has kept you safe. The way he's smiled at you from yards away at school the last couple weeks has been enough to turn you on at the memory of what you saw of him. Memories you're trying awfully hard to forget. Getting into his swooped up white Ferrari with him? That's just asking for trouble.

 

But: you really do want to go home right now. You were planning on smoking a little and de-stressing with some Xbox for two hours before settling into the homework, coding, and Quadrant moderation that awaits you. Who knows if Kankri will actually be back in a half hour? You feel bad asking Kanaya to ask her mom when she's already long gone home. This is seriously putting a stint in your plans.

 

CG: OKAY.

CG: YOU MAY PICK ME UP FROM EXACTLY WHERE I'M CURRENTLY STANDING AND PLACE ME DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF MY RESIDENCE.

CG: NO WHERE ELSE, DO YOU HEAR ME? NO STOPS. NO INTERMISSIONS. NO DRAGGING ME TO MCDONALDS FOR A MCFLURRY.

TG: shit i could really go for a mcflurry right now

CG: DO YOU ACTUALLY EAT AT MCDONALDS? I'D ASSUME SOMEONE WITH ASSLOADS OF MONEY FALLING OUT OF THEIR POCKETS WOULDN'T GRACE SUCH MORTAL ESTABLISHMENTS. DON'T YOU PEOPLE ONLY EAT CAVIAR AND GOLD LEAF?

TG: karkat you wound me

TG: mcdonalds is good no matter how rich you are

TG: and caviar tastes like sperm

CG: I DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU KNOW WHAT SPERM TASTES LIKE.

TG: you should know

TG: i tasted yours

 

You're blushing furiously as he speeds around the corner, stopping at the curb in front of you.

 

"Get in loser, we're going shopping."

 

 

♋️

 

 

You're at his house. Again. This is only going to be for two hours, replacing the drab relaxtion skit you'd already planned for yourself - Dave has better weed than you and he asked you about your app in the car at the McDonalds drive thru, showed you that he's downloaded it and okay you're not making any more lame excuses for yourself - and you're not touching him while you're here for so little time, you fucking swear to god.

 

“By the way, like I said, no one knows you’re here. As an acquaintance. Not even John." Dave opens the giant doors to his palace, watches you saunter in. "Unless you want ‘em to.”

 

“No, I’m not sure that I do.”

 

“Okay.”

 

When he leads you up two flights of stairs to the entertainment room where your original sin went down, you're a little alarmed. The couch looks exactly the way you did when you were in it three weeks ago and how long has that laundry actually been sitting there? Can't the robot maids just fold it? He sits down and turns the TV on absently, fixing a bowl of Sativa in a glass pipe, and you pause. Stand staring at him cautiously in the middle of the room.

 

"What?"

 

"No funny business, alright? I trusted you enough to waste my designated free time here instead of at my boring house. Don't take advantage of me."

 

Dave looks at you seriously for a moment. He's long taken the Spectacles off. It's intense.

 

"Did you feel like, the first time, I took advantage of you?"

 

Shit. No, you didn't. You were of free will and long past being buzzed enough for any type of coercion when you accepted his kiss in the pool. You were high during some of the frottage, but you'd wanted that too.

 

"No. Not at all. I just don't want it to happen again, okay? I'm here for your weed."

 

He smirks. "Roger, captain."

 

You sit quietly together, as far apart as you can on the couch, and watch the MTV program he currently has playing. It's not what you'd wanna watch - though _Catfish_ is one of your favorite psychological experiments, you've had many episodes about the phenomenon on Quadrant - but it doesn't matter what he wants to watch, because you're getting high. A nice, comfortable high.

 

“I guess it’s the religion thing?" At some point you started talking to him, and now you're deep in a conversation that started with your qualms about your brother. "I’m not even really Catholic anymore. I don’t know if I ever really believed in it. It was just so compelling, this idea that there was this higher power governing all the bad shit I faced in life, making sure I'd get reciprocity. My brother’s so into it all he thinks a tarnished ring is going to keep him from ‘sins of the flesh.’ My dad used to tell us that he'd tithed for thirty years so that one day he’d be rich. And look at us. I mean, we don’t even go to mass anymore.”

 

“One day I asked Bro who Jesus was. After spinning me a tale about the guy, probably non-canonical, he said, ‘Personally, I think that shit’s poppycock, but you kids believe whatever you want to.’ So I believed in nothing.”

 

He talks to you a lot about his music. Normally you wouldn't care, but he's so into it and you're high and you had no idea he actually had any musical talent. Granted, you've never heard his work, but he's been mixing since he was six and has apparently worked some pretty prestigious gigs, for his age, connection to his famous "brother" notwithstanding. He can't suck at it that badly.

 

He then practically begs you, so excited, like a kid on his sixth birthday, to let him show you his work, the turntables and all he's got tucked into his master bedroom. You acquiesce, since your tryst has been free of flirting completely so far, and you doubt he's going to hypnotize you into his bed again - though the dirty part of your mind wouldn't mind that (fuck fuck fuck, stop that noise) -

 

He leads you up a floor to his bedroom and takes his stand behind the turntables, rambles on about mics and speakers and cords, showing you this and that, putting you onto his Soundcloud, he’s such a geek, oh my god how did you not realize what a geek he is for knowing so many obscure things about music production and samples and hip hop and so-and-so made this song with this weird acronym that represents a person and yada yada yada.

 

And then he’s playing things for you: switching in and out of like ten different songs, jazz, ska, metal, and post-punk and somehow making it all blend together, though you’re not sure _you’d_ listen to it. Throwing in some dry, witty lyrics at opportune times:

 

“How you looking up to me and talking down? / Can’t you see I am the big man? / God level, I am the ‘I Am’ / Now film it with that drone cam / In the pink like Killa Cam / Zoom in on that stick, noé / Up so close I'm on the kill / Controller on your lower back / Yeah that's the good / Dick could roll the eyes back in the skull.”

 

“Rowdy, stubborn, loud and arrogant / As American as apple pie and embarrassment / Package the kid's face, put it on display / Look ma! Another national disgrace / Dumb and ignorant, drunk and belligerent / Open up your heart y'all, come on and let me in / Package the kid's face, put it on display / Look ma! Another national disgrace.”

 

He takes you home after exactly one hour and forty five minutes, Spectacles back on his face, and you're chaste. He hasn't so much as been within two feet of your personal space this whole time, and yes he's godly fucking handsome and you wish this were some kind of high school AU so you could actually...no. Would you even really?

 

"Not to be presumptuous," he says, as he idles in front of your house, "but we should do this again sometime."

 

You sigh. "I just don't think - I'm still uncomfortable with the Terezi of our situation."

 

He hesitates for a moment. "You think she wouldn't want us to be friends?"

 

"I mean, it's just that she knows how much I hate you, and yes, I still mean currently hate, so she's no doubt going to question why we started hanging out in the first place. And do you think I want to tell her, when she's already upset with me, that I made out with her ex? Kind of just to spite her?"

 

Dave nods, and does he look - disappointed?

 

"That's fair. Well, while it lasted. Thank you, Karkat."

 

 

♋️

 

 

Your father and Kankri have some unspoken war going on that you know nothing about.

 

It's a rare weeknight where your father is home at seven instead of nine, and Kankri's mother is sick, so she couldn't go into work. She actually cooked dinner tonight, which she probably hasn't done in almost a year. When your stepmother knocks on your door lightly to tell you the food is ready, you practically seize up. She's never done such a matronly thing. Is she expecting you to eat down there  _with_ them, with her and your dad? You could, but it's more after school special and healthy than you're used to. Something tells you that something isn't right, if they both want you to come down.

 

You tell Nepeta via Pesterchum that you're taking a quick five from your GitHub session, wander out to the hall and down the stairs. When you get the dining room, indeed, the three members of your disjointed family are sitting around the table, quietly picking at servings of chile rellanos. This is a dick move, but you get a plate for yourself, take some food, and grumble something about having homework you're in the middle of. Your father's response is only to glance at you. Your stepmother asks if you would, "please," sit.

 

You're expecting awkward shit to pop off immediately since they seemed so pressed for your presence. Instead, you sit there for ten minutes before anyone says anything, the only sounds the scraping of your forks against ceramic. Kankri, meanwhile, looks out of sorts as fuck. He keeps touching the purity ring on his necklace, over and over and over. He’s been biting his nails and his hands are all scabby. What the fuck is going on with him?

 

"Today, your father got the news that he is being laid off from Xoracle," your stepmother says eventually. "He's going to be getting severance, and I have enough left in my savings to keep the mortgage up through the winter. But things are going to be tight for the next couple of months."

 

You look over at the man himself, who shovels another bite of food in his mouth. Why did she announce this for him?

 

"Shit," you say. "I'm sorry about that, Dad."

 

"Language," he says.

 

"What exactly does 'tight for the next couple of months' mean?" Kankri says.

 

"It means," your dad says then, "that I need you to be responsible and stop crashing into things with your car."

 

You whip your head around at Kankri. Shit, you didn't go in through the garage because Dave dropped you off. Did he crash into something today? How bad was it?

 

"The fender is something I can get taken care of myself." Kankri bristles, looking like he might cry. "I didn't mean to - "

 

"I know, honey." His mother smiles weakly at him. "You just need to be careful is all."

 

"Don't think I don't know that you're failing statistics, and chemistry." Your dad says this without looking up at him, through a mouthful of rice. "Your teachers emailed me. At this rate, are you going to get accepted anywhere? I meant what I said. On graduation day, you're out."

 

"I'll be fucking fine."

 

"Excuse me? What did you say?"

 

"Nothing."

 

"You're lucky I don't kick you out now, given what I saw on your computer."

 

Holy shit.  _Holy shit._

 

"Hector, please," your stepmother says.

 

"I have been very, very lenient with both of you," your father says now, and he looks at you too. What does Kankri watching some kind of porn and getting walked in on have to do with you? "I let you use my cars. I don't enforce curfew. If I find out that either of you are sleeping with _men,_  while you're living under my roof? Bets are off."

 

At this, you freeze hard. He doesn't know, there's no way he knows, Kankri would've attacked you verbally over it first, before telling him. But it's like - what the fuck are the odds of this conversation happening  _right now_ _?_

 

You've always known that your father doesn't agree with the gay lifestyle. He's never really been that aggressive about it, but you guess that's because he never had any inkling that either of you were inclined. Apparently now, he wonders. He rarely pries into your personal lives, he said it himself - he didn't even know about Terezi because that's how little he cares what you do with your time, and neither was your stepmother in tune - but is this him telling you that something's going to change?

 

Guess you know what kind of porn Kankri was watching. Shit, this really could mean he and Cronus - and you should probably go upstairs and hide your weed -

 

"I would never," Kankri says now, visibly shaking, "ever, do what you're accusing me of. I made a mistake, I had - t-the wrong webpage up, and you just - "

 

"Whatever you say." Your dad pauses to take a drink of water, and all of you watch him. "Get your grades back up. Or else."

 

"I'm uh." Your stomach lurches, thinking about Dave smiling at you across the seat of his car. "Done eating."

 

You return to your bedroom, the chile rellanos churning uncomfortably in your guts. After taking the half full vials of cannabis that you have scattered around your dressertop and shoving them into one of your pillowcases, you message Nepeta a series of "HOLY FUCK" themed messages about your brother being possibly gay (?!?) and what's transpired, and she sends a series of cat themed "omgs" and condolences. Says she has to log off because her mother and her are about to read to each other. That makes something in your heart pang.

 

Where is your mom?

 

You climb back off your bed and open one of your desk drawers. One of the three photos you have of her is waiting for you at the top of a bunch other junk. Her face favors yours, the photo is long browned, but she's smiling, and you wish desperately that you could find her now. That you knew the sound of her voice. The kinds of things she used to say. You know that she spoke Tagalog. You used to too, when you were very young, only to her. It was never enough to make you learn it permanently. 

 

Feeling sentimental and stupid, you take the photo with you back to bed. Wish she could be here, diffusing all of your adolescent struggles. Can you not recall her clearly anymore because it’s too painful? Or because you were really too young to remember?

 

Tonight around ten, Equius and Nepeta pick you up to go to the station; they really don't have to drive to and from Ensena, you insist, even though you have fuck all for gas, but they don't listen to you.  Nepeta shows you what she pushed for the latest UI bug fixes on the Quadrant app. As she hands you her phone from the passenger to seat to show you, you stare at the app's main menu and pause.

 

"What's with the pool balls?" you say.

 

"Pool balls?"

 

You show her what you mean: where the navigation icons should be, they are replaced with various, yes, spinning pool balls - an eight for the home screen, a one for the forums, a fourteen for the archives, and various others.

 

"Hmmmm," she purrs. "That's weird."

 

"You didn't push that?"

 

"Nope!"

 

When the three of you get to the station, Sollux reviews the code for her update as well as every inch of the app's code he has time to scan before your show goes live. He can't determine by whom you were breached, at least not yet, but it makes you uneasy to think about. The random phone calls - is it connected?

 

"I don't like thith," is all Sollux says, at the end of his short analysis. He pinches the bridge of his nose beneath his bi-colored glasses. "I don't like thith at alllllll."

 

"We should probably come up with better encryption," Equius says.

 

"Yeah, no thit, Therlock."

 

 

♋️

 

 

The next day at 5 p.m., there’s a meeting happening between Equius and his boss. Equius says his boss called him just after he was done with classes to say that said meeting was urgent. Your show last night - re: generational homophobia - went well, nothing out of the usual at all. In fact, it was one of the most listened to shows of this week. So you've been wondering all day what the hell is up.

 

You and Kanaya are at her mother's doing homework - you need a reprieve from home after last night's affairs, and she understands - when Nepeta suddenly pesters you saying she's picking you up and bringing you to the station. Kanaya goes with you, moral support.

 

When you arrive, Sollux is standing outside the station, clicking into his phone underneath the tallest pine trees. You realize that you haven't seen this building or the forest that surrounds it during daylight hours in - shit, you don't even know how long. Your first day here? You get out of Nepeta's car and shuffle up the red dirt road, and Sollux greets Kanaya. He always liked her.

 

"Okay," you say to Nepeta, who has been uncharacteristically quiet and cagey, "I'm sure you know what's going on with this meeting because you and the guy in question are telepathic. What gives?"

 

Nepeta presses her lips together just as the door to the station opens up. Equius comes out sweating, slamming the door so hard that it shakes the walls.

 

"Thit, did we get fucking fired?" Sollux groans.

 

Equius hands Nepeta his phone.

 

"Play the recording. First, let's go over there."

 

"Over there" is a clearing in the pine trees a ways down the road. Apparently Equius recorded the meeting using his phone in his jacket pocket. The station owners - many of them popular daytime hosts at the station, older white men - are concerned that the interests of your show are starting to disengage from their core Ensena viewership. In fact, they had been concerned a while ago. Since your sharp uptick in listeners, they've been paying more attention to "what you kids say." They say they think "this is the best course of action for WBFN."

 

 _“Essentially,"_ you hear Equius' boss say, in that grating chipper voice, _"you don’t really need us anymore!”_

 

_“I’m sorry, are you saying. You’re canceling my thesis project?”_

 

_“Yes. We’re sorry about this, Equius.”_

 

At which point Equius had blown his load, flipped over their office table.

 

You now sit with Kanaya on the hood of Nepeta's car; Equius and Nepeta are walking down the road together, out of sight, to help calm Equius' nerves. Sollux is on the phone with his brother Mituna in the same place he stood when you arrived, bitching about what just happened.

 

And you? Well. You're just shocked. 

  

“He does have a point," Kanaya says. "Not about your content. But so many people are listening to you now. _Just_ you. And, you know, despite the overwhelming population of color in Ensena. The people in control are. A certain way.”

 

“Yeah, but what’s the goddamn point? Without the radio? The whole thing was centered around - _fuck_."

 

Your grief hits you overwhelmingly, then. This station and the way of old school life that it's offered you has been your safehaven for over a year; memories of staying up laughing with your friends, your landlines ringing off the hook, the connections you've made. The fact that, even in 2017, so many young people still used static and antennae to get in touch with you. 

 

The fact that KK was your voice, sure, but not  _you_. Not Karkat, the sophomore slump currently squatting on a rusted hood.

 

“The Quadrant is your baby," Kanaya says. "I’ve watched you nurture it so. Your idea, and the care that has influenced it, have blossomed. Surely, this won't be the end. You still have your website, the ship wall, and the app.”

 

“Yeah, but what I loved about it most was the voices.”

 

As Kanaya goes on to tell you that "technically the same kind of thing could be achieved with the four of you and a cell phone" - you don’t need bells and whistles - you can't currently see the bright side of the loss of your origination. Without the link to WBFN's radio stream, and your slot, The Quadrant has no live broadcast - at least not one that maintains the high quality you've upheld since your start. And technically, Nepeta and Sollux are the authors of the Quadrant website's source code. You've had the overall say in what gets posted in what order, you moderate the forums and the wall which requires basically no code literacy, and you attempt to do some of the basic scripting Sollux can't be assed to do on any given day. But take a look at your GitHub and see that twinArmegeddons and arsenicCatnip are the ones who are really committed.

 

And Equius is the reason you had access to thousands of dollars of broadcast equipment in the first place. Sure the microphones, mixers, and transmitters lent to you by Ensena Community Radio were outdated - most crafted in the mid 2000s, bolted to the floor - but it made what you were creating feel epic and timeless.

 

Now what?

 

Your head hurts.

 

Equius and Nepeta return from their calming walk as Sollux hangs up his phone, and they rejoin you and Kanaya at the car. Equius apologizes to everyone for his rash anger, and asks you all to come back to his family’s house for dinner.

 

You've met the Zahhaks twice before. They live on the Serrano Native Indian Reservation in the north of Ensena county; the Leijons have lived there for generations also. Nepeta drives you and Kanaya, with Sollux and Equius following, into the open gates of the acres of sacred land. The Zahhak house is one story, spread apart from its neighbors, characterized by billowing chimney, haystacks, and legion of fenced-in horses. Seriously, they have so many goddamn horses. The first time you were here, you learned that Equius' parents smoke weed with them; Equius’ brother Horruss, Nepeta, too. His mom and dad believe that cannabis opens up a side of your spirituality that shouldn't be withheld, and hey, you agree and all of that shit, it's just that you can't imagine  _ever_ being comfortable enough to do drugs with either of your wardens.

 

Being here a third time, you are transfixed by the comfortable way Nepeta and Equius are when they're at home. Nepeta is always lively and outspoken, but Equius clams up something serious whenever you're all in public. Here, with his brother and parents in the house, he talks more than you've heard him talk in a long while. You, Kanaya, and Sollux are seated on the living room couch, listening to Nepeta and Equius' parents tell you stories about what's going on on the reservation, how progress has been. The way Nepeta and Equius love each other here, their chaste, slow burn romance, the way they've been rooted to each other all their lives, could make you sick with jealousy, if you thought on it. It’s hard not to move past that though and instead be in supportive awe, that they're so sure they've found their person for life so early on. The Leijons and Zahhaks have agreed that Equius is going to wait until Nepeta is of age to marry her. Their parents approve of their strong friendship in the meantime. Nothing has ever happened between them yet – at most, Equius kisses her on the cheek.

 

Ask them both if they’re soulmates and you get the same answer:

 

“No question. From the first time we saw each other.”

 

Nepeta claims she remembers the occasion, even though she was only four years old at the time:

 

“At a party with both of our families, one of his cousin's dogs attacked me really hard, and it bit my cheek!” She always points to the corresponding scar stretched along her jaw when she tells the tale. “So Equius picked the dog up and threw it across the yard! It hit the fence! They fought each other - and Equius was winning! - until his father restrained the dog and chained it back up to the post. But nobody knew that Equius was so strong! When I got to the emergency room, they said the damage to my jaw could have been much worse if he hadn’t stepped in. He saved my life!”

 

“Uh, did he really?” you said the first time she ever told you, thirteen years old. “His dad sounds like he’s the one who saved you both by chaining the dog back up. That thing seriously could’ve died being thrown like that, by the way.”

 

“Hey, what about me?!”

 

Equius’ retelling is similar, but no cigar:

 

“Ah, yes,” he said the first time he told you, “the day I wrung my first beast.”

 

“Uh, what?”

 

“It was then that I realized my true calling, to be a wrestler, pump iron, and all those other sorts of strong things.”

 

“You’re a computer engineer slash radio tech, you don’t even lift, bro. I mean you do, like, heavy speakers and boxes and shit, just for fun? But ‘wrestler’ or person who spends time at an actual gym, with other humans? I think fucking not.”

 

“The dog and I were of equal size and girth. After I subdued it, I turned around and looked into Nepeta’s eyes. She had blood and fur around her mouth. She had not needed me to smite the beast, for she had already bitten a chunk out of its jowl. Probably on her way through the rest of him. She was truly a brave and fearless child.”

 

“Uh, _what?"_

 

“She neglects to include this bit of information in her retelling.”

 

“No shit!”

 

“It’s why she wears that patch on her jacket of mine, which she’s defaced.”

 

“’This pussy bites back.’ Yeah, I thought it was metaphorical, like some feminist anti-Frump thing?”

 

“That, and literal, too. She thinks the dog tasted good.”

 

“Fucking sick.”

 

“What?” Nepeta was all innocent shrugs when you returned to her with this rumor. “I know it’s not a nice thing to say, because we love domesticated puppies in this country, but meat is meat! If you’re going to eat one animal, you might as well eat them all. You eat medium rare burgers, Karkitty! I bet you wouldn’t _really_ know if there was medium rare dog mixed in with your beef patties. Especially covered in delicious sauce!”

 

“Remind me to never eat dinner at either of your houses again.”

 

But right now, as you sit at the Zahhak's dinner table, you don’t even care that you could be eating something questionable, you’re shoving your face full of sauced muscle and fried bread like you haven’t really eaten in weeks. You kind of haven’t.

 

After dinner, all of you take to the outdoors; as Equius shows Kanaya some of the horses in the yard, you talk to Nepeta and Sollux seriously about what today meant for The Quadrant.

 

"Equius says he's going to talk to his college," Nepeta tells you both; you're following her lead past the house and towards the mountainous cliff range that hangs nearby. "It is not his fault that the station canceled his project, so surely, they'll do something to help him!"

 

"That sounds great?" you say to her, as Sollux picks at a piece of lint caught in your hair, sniggering, and you swat him violently. "But I still have this bad gut feeling that we won't be able to fully recover from this. I mean, is this some kind of sign from the universe or something? First our shit gets overloaded by troll calls, then our app gets messed with by some outside source, and then less than twenty four hours later we're being booted from our jobs for reasons that are  _seemingly_ unconnected, but it all just seems too really fucking convenient, don't you think?"

 

"Are you thure it'th not jutht that  _you_ aren't wanting to do thith thow anymore?"

 

"No. Did I say that?"

 

“I don’t know, you’ve theemed kind of dithtracted lately, KK.”

 

“You can tell us whate-fur is happening to you at school,” Nepeta says. “We want to know more about the space that you live in!”

 

“It’s just that I don’t really have a space that I’d like to bring anyone into.”

 

It hurts you to say that to them, because they aren’t just anyone. But both of them accept your words, nodding in tune, as the three of you reach the top of the overlook. Nepeta sparks up the joint, and you pass it silently among you. Gazing out onto the Ensena National Forest, smokestacks rising. On a cliff at the edge of the world.

 

 

♋️

 

 

When you get home, you post a very long message as KK on The Quadrant site, explaining that your nightly show is on hiatus, while you will still be joining them on the shipping walls, forums, and other media. You apologize profusely for the trouble and interruption, but tell them you’ll be back, you and you heartfelt rants about relationships, and with a vengeance. Even if you aren't sure that  _Karkat_ really believes it yet.

 

Many users reply to your message instantly, telling you that if you have a Kickstarter or donation page, they’ll be happy to help. Shit, why didn’t you think of that before? You get to starting on that as Equius emails you some relatively affordable, but still not in your budget, live streaming internet services that could get your voice back online. The four of you could start your own low-power FM station, too, he says, so long as you can find the transmitters, and he can use his at-home sound equipment, and you can crowdsource the money for microphones and antennae.

 

Not long after you post your Kickstarter page to The Quadrant, money from your listeners starts slowly trickling in. It's not much, at least not at first, $5 or $10 or $20 dollar commitments, here and there. Until one very large donation gives you _serious_  fucking pause.

 

Dave Strider has pledged $500 

 

All day today, you have tried not to think about that last look he gave you before his Ferrari sped from your house. All day today, at school, he did that same thing he's done for the last few weeks, hanging out with John but sneaking a smile at you from a distance if you just so happen to be looking first. You can't deny that you had fun at his house yesterday, and that was platonic, with no funny business before or after it. There has never been any actual chance or conceivable possibility in your mind that you and Dave Strider could have grounds enough to be friendly one day. But if you're being honest? It's not like you haven't jealously imagined it, in middle school and high school, wishing you were great or cool enough that he paid you any mind. He was always around you, but never near enough, you in his shadow.

 

Now all of a sudden, the tables are turned, and Dave wants you.

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering turntechGodhead at 21:10:45 

CG: I'M REALLY NOT IN ANY POSITION TO TURN IT DOWN, LIKE AT ALL, BUT TAKE YOUR MONEY BACK.

CG: OR AT LEAST LIKE EIGHTY PERCENT OF IT.

CG: I'M UNCOMFORTABLE TAKING THAT MUCH MONEY FROM SOMEONE I ACTUALLY KNOW IN REAL LIFE ABOUT THIS.

CG: SO IF YOU DON'T MIND.

TG: no problem

CG: THANK YOU.

CG: SO YOU REALLY DO READ ALL OF MY SHIT NOW, DON'T YOU? YOU'RE ONE OF MY REGULAR QUADRANT SYCOPHANTS? I POSTED THAT MESSAGE ALL OF AN HOUR AGO AND HERE YOU ARE, A BENEFACTOR AT THE READY.

TG: yeah man i thought i told you i kept tunin in

TG: i know you dont wanna be friends but i like your show

TG: if you dont want me listenin or followin along or whatever just say and ill fuck right off

CG: NO. IT'S OKAY.

CG: IT'S JUST STILL KIND OF WEIRD THAT PEOPLE FROM SCHOOL ARE PAYING ATTENTION.

TG: more than

TG: me and meenah trade commentary like pretty much every episode

TG: okay we only did that once or twice

TG: but she does listen most nights and enjoys so does aranea

TG: tavros vriska fef and eridan catch it sometimes too

TG: i try to get john to listen but hes too distracted watching his nic cage dvds that time of night

TG: buncha freshmen secretly got a lil fan club theyre too starstruck to tell you the nature of irl

TG: youre good like you may even have a gift if i may be so bold

CG: CAN I ASK YOU SOMETHING?

TG: shoot

CG: WHY ARE YOU DOING ALL OF THIS? DO YOU LIKE ME?

TG: lol

CG: I ACTUALLY WANTED A REAL ANSWER TO THAT, FUCKFACE, NOT A SHRUG AND AN 'LOL'

TG: well it all depends on what kinda like like do you mean platonic like or if i could id buy you a dozen roses and leave em on your porch step every day like

TG: im allergic to roses have i ever told you that

TG: probably not seeing as how were so not friends

TG: but its actually really tragic

TG: really eats at my self esteem im just so sensitive

TG: cant look at light for too long animal dander is a life threat and sweet smellin pollen makes your boy break out in hives

TG: anyway whether or not i like you enough to die over romantic gestures

TG: to put it in your words the terezi of the situation

TG: hypothetically if you were to say wanna start secretly going out with me sometimes cause i think we have a connection and i could say buy you milkshake and watch you get a lil milk mustache and not say anything til you realize and curse me out all quick like you do cause i couldve saved your ass the embarrassment

TG: i wouldnt be opposed to that maybe

TG: i dont just kiss anybody like i kissed you

TG: and i didnt expect it to be what it was

TG: and i know you probably regret it even tho i think we came to pretty good terms about it the other day but

TG: im actually kinda interested in this thing

TG: if you are

 

God help you, you are.

 

CG: WHAT ARE YOU DOING RIGHT NOW?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave's raps this chapter are from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnbsIl2BnWw) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU6uqQcyEvA)
> 
> Chapter Seven is finished! Just need to get the jump on Chapter Eight.


	7. Chapter 7

 

 _I came to visit_  
_'Cause you see me like a UFO_  
_That's like never_  
_'Cause I made you use your self control  
_ _And you made me lose my self control_

– Frank Ocean, “[Self Control](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BME88lS6aVY)”

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

Spending time with Dave is starting to become deeply romantic. Fuck, is that something you're really accepting? It's laughing about the jokes that you both make until you're in tears and fighting with him because he talks too goddamn much and so do you. It's all the ways that he annoys you and drives you fucking crazy but apologizes every time with moves that take your breath away. It's the fact that it is all so yours, very secret. When he takes you out - to old school restaurants, historic parks and observatories - they're always out of town an hour or further, Dave pays and/or drives, and you come back to his sprawling mansion and fornicate all over it through the evening. His house is never with anyone in it, save for the robots - his Bro basically comes home every other week for a couple hours - and you've realized that despite his popular appeal, his hundreds of thousands of internet watchers, Dave is lonely.

 

One night, in early October, he admits:

 

“I’m not getting into college. All this dough my Bro spends on me and I’m planning on wasting it in Europe this summer. Who knows what I’ll do after that. Maybe I’ll crawl over to the local CC and take East African Basket Weaving and Introduction to Women’s Studies. But I don’t know what I’m gonna do in life, and that’s the point. I have. Potential. And the redblooded American right to do not shit with it.”

 

And another night, this:

 

“I listened to all your Quadrant episodes in one night. I was literally pacing across my floor ‘cause you had me so shook and I realized like, wow, all these years I been knowing slash viewing this kid and I didn't even know what he really thinks about or _sounds_ like. I mean, I kinda knew, you could fucking scream outright when you wanted to, like remember that time you did that  _embarrassing_ l'il stunt in P.E. when I was in sixth and you were in fourth and you fell in front of everyone - ”

 

“The point, please, Strider, my fondness for you evaporates by the second.”

 

“But I’d never. I don’t know. I didn’t realize your voice does these _things_ , like. I really feel what you’re saying, I can feel whatever you feel when you speak and you just. You just have this way. I ain’t mean for my audience to stick with you, beautiful. They just did.”

  

There has been the problem that you know or at least think that something like this can't be so sustainable. He doesn't hang out with you at school during the day, and isn't that what you planned? He still spends most of his time with John, surrounded by Meenah, Tavros, Gamzee, your brother, Porrim and Cronus, other seniors, and you still watch them from outside the quad at your L-shaped table. He swings around and picks you up at places on campus where no one can see you after classes. Kankri hasn't bothered asking how or why you don't come home at the early evenings. Terezi hasn't - she actually hangs out with John a lot now, semi-alone, whenever John isn't glued to Dave's side anyway. It's probably an awkward situation for them, but Dave doesn't talk about it, and shit you aren't really trying to ask him. You do see him watch them, sometimes. Terezi spends her time with Vriska, Gamzee and Tavros otherwise. You haven't heard from her and she hasn't looked your way since you left her origami frog in the hallway.

 

Kanaya has been sworn to continued secrecy about your affairs. You haven't told her much about the details of what you're doing with Dave, though. All she knows, or at least thinks, is that you're starting to fall into patterns with him. What kind of relationship is it  _really_ if it isn't happening in front of anyone else? If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it - you aren't even going to finish that lame vintage thought. Rose has definitely cottoned on to something, though if she knows that it's with Dave, she still hasn't said a word to you. Kanaya wishes she could tell her, she tells you, but you aren't ready for that kind of reality.

 

This week, it's the start of midterm exams, in the middle of October. You and Dave have pretty much existed in tandem from the hours of four to nine, quietly typing away at your homework and various labor on your laptops, messing with each other when you can. Right now, he's declared that you need a break, so you descend three stories to the basement, or the “den” where you were at that party in sixth grade. In the back section of the lounge, Dave has several electric, bass and acoustic guitars arranged around a giant set of drums, which are in front of more of his signature turntables and a keyboard. He has two soundproof partitions behind this, filled up with a booth of mixing workstations, rack mounts, controllers, speakers, recording mics, the whole nine. You are woefully jealous of how the rich and semi-famous-by-relation live their lives. Excess shit.

 

“Can you actually play or is this just a lavish ironic display you have set up for your Instagrub?”

 

“They say I was born wearing a pair of shades somehow identical to my Bro's and straddling a Gibson acoustic. My mother’s outstretched vagina was a mustachioed trooper, granted I was really even born of a human woman. That’s so classified shit not even I know, I bet Bro found us in a fuckin' blown-out ditch from an explosion like The Powerpuff Girls. Anyway in fifth grade me, Dirk, Jake and John used to have a band, The Zodiac Killers. Damn, we should’ve called ourselves The Powerpuff Girls.”

 

“I’m surprised we didn’t all hear about this garbage from you incessantly."

 

“We were pretty fucking terrible.”

 

For a moment you think he’s going to force you to listen to the no doubt hundreds of .mp3s he has saved of the experience (davids_mother_fucking_fifth_grade_bangers.zip), but instead, you watch him saunter to his row of instruments, sit down on the Cajon box, and lightly pluck at the strings of his Gibson, tuning it. He gazes at the acoustic almost longingly. He’s quiet. You flash back to the intimate moment you just had with him in his room, when he kissed you like it was the last thing he'd ever do, and then you say:

 

“Well then, where’s your follow through? Serenade me, asshole.”

 

He smiles and you swear, you’re addicted to this feeling, just a feeling.

 

“It’s not like my rap. ’s alot more sentimental and emotional and vulnerable and shit but. Here goes.”

 

Dave starts to pick at chords, gentle, light, and then he [sings](https://youtu.be/BME88lS6aVY?t=18):

 

“I'll be the boyfriend in your wet dreams tonight / Noses on a rail, little virgin wears the white / You cut your hair but you used to live a blonded life / Wish I was there, wish we'd grown up on the same advice / And our time was right / Keep a place for me, for me / I'll sleep between y'all, it's no thing.”

 

“Now and then you miss it / Sounds make you cry / Some nights you dance with / Tears in your eyes.”

 

He stops a moment, lets his hands laze.

 

“Fuck.”

 

“What? That was good, I - ”

 

“No just, c’mere, I wanna - ”

 

He puts the guitar down and flashsteps across the room to you, accosts you with a wave of those kisses from before. You swoon, and soon he has you on the floor, undressing you, playing you like his strings.

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

The Quadrant has been slowly resuming, the rest of this month. While you wait to purchase the equipment necessary for your own low-power FM station, you use a professional USB mic you bought with the Kickstarter money and upload the nightly show as a pre-recorded podcast instead, sometimes alone at your house during which your friends chime in virtually, and sometimes meeting up with everybody at Equius's house. Sollux creates you a virtual phone number for callers, and pre-show, you post a message to the site with an audio clip on the themes, which users can then call in and respond to. It isn't as interactive as it once was, but it works. Equius edits it, you post each episode at eleven P.M., and it sort of sounds like some of your old things did. The shipping wall and other aspects are still running, granted not as elliptically. Listenership has gone down a bit, but that was to be expected, and give or take, ten thousand people still interact with your show on a daily basis.

 

One weekend, Dave offers you some of his equipment to bridge the gap. Says he doesn't need it, that you don't have to pay him, that you and your friends can just have at his stuff. You decide not to take him up on this because you are _so_ not together, you don’t want to owe him, and how would you explain it? Your friends don’t know about you and Dave, all they know is what Nepeta knows, that he was once one of your grade school bullies, and you aren't really gunning to tell them why it's happening now.

 

“They kind of hate you because you crashed our servers. And yeah, the other side of the hill we had to climb to get out of that shit ended up being smooth and grassy, but the sheer amount of trolls you sent us that day scared us out of our broke ass seats for a minute.”

 

“I can’t say enough that I shouldn’t’ve done it that way, dude.”

 

“No, I know that, just. Apology accepted, you don’t have to take us on like some kind of charity case. It's why I had you take your Kickstarter money back. Even _if_ I wanted your stuff, which I don’t, Sollux would call me an ass kissing sell out if he knew the story of us and call you a capitalist overlord, and Nepeta and Equius would politely fucking refuse. And there’s no way I could lie about how I got it. How would I explain suddenly coming up with thousands of dollars of mics and mixers? The only other explanation would be that I stole it. I’m brown and mouthy as shit in a town full of judgmental white people, I don’t need any more red flags. We’ll make our way yet.”

 

Finally, the last week of October, you and Team Adorabloodthirsty have built something of a functioning mini radio station in Equius' bedroom: three Logitech mics and pop filters, a switchboard with nine lines, Equius' old school at-home mixers, a low FM transmitter, and copious wiring take up most of the left side of Equius' quarters. The modest antenna Equius affixed to the roof of his house, too, is an eyesore. It has occurred to you, looking at The Quadrant's new cramped array, that since most of your listener-ship now comes from the greater United States, and not just Ensena, that doing all this work for the local channel and spending all this money may not have been worth the few people who  _might_ still use a classic radio to listen to your show. Many of your listeners have already gotten used to the podcast system, though others say they do miss the live aspect of it, but it's not like you can afford an entire satellite to reach everyone. And Sollux has pointed out multiple times, while roasting you for your obsession with outdated commtech, that there are plenty of bandwidth-heavy live streaming services - Equius even sent you some - that you could've  _bought_ for less work than all this mess.

 

He has a point, though it does take you a while to admit it. Your FM station, when you try out the first nightly show with it, keeps getting overtaken with neighboring broadcasts by none other than 94.4, WBFN. You  _are_ occupying 93.6, too close for comfort. So, the following morning, a Saturday, you and Sollux pawn off the transmitter and antenna, for a fraction of what you bought them for. Use the funds from the sale and the rest of the Kickstarter money to pay for a studio quality online livestreamer. 

 

It's kind of nice being your own boss. Sometimes you decide to have Quadrant shows at nine or ten instead of eleven, giving the four of you hours for sleep, and giving your east coast listeners more of a chance that they'll have time to log in. Sometimes your shows run longer, much longer, than the designated hour you used to have - there's one night in particular where you talk in detail about what love even really  _is,_ deeper than you're used to getting, for three whole hours, and it's hard not to let some of what you're secretly going through right now with Dave bleed into these starry discussions. Nepeta and Sollux glance at you that way that says they know you aren't telling them things about your personal life, about just how much you _aren't_ the kid that never gets laid ever, even if the lay is spotty. Just the same way they looked at you when you said those things that made Terezi want to show your voice to Valley View High School. It's not that you want to keep your friends in the dark - it  _is,_ but it's just that you and KK are not the same, and they know this. But how long are you going to keep pretending that three years of friendship can really be so bifurcated? 

 

One Thursday afternoon, you're at your own house instead of at Dave's for once. He has some kind of live songwriting chat thing he's doing for his YouTube show with John, and if Egbert is anywhere near his house, you are not. Part of you considers watching whatever they're doing, but you decide you'd rather not watch them flirt-not-really-flirt with each other incessantly. As you fixate over stats homework instead, your iThrone buzzes underneath your notebooks more than usual; single notes, one at a time, like you're getting text messages. These new disturbances, today, are indeed SMS, and no one you know besides your parents and Kankri actually uses SMS anymore, not with Pesterchum, Snapcrap and Instagrub being what they are.

 

The messages are all annoying, in cryptic all caps, sent from random numbers. Eventually, you text one of them back and ask how they got your number.

 

 **(404)-420-6969:** I HAPPEN. TO KNOW A LOT OF THINGS.

 **(404)-420-6969:** THIS IS. A DIRECT RESPONSE. TO YOuR SICKENING HEART RADIO SHOW.

 **(404)-420-6969:** QuADRANT. I HATE IT.

 **(555)-867-5309:** OH, GREAT. SO THE CALLS TO MY LINE AT ALL HOURS OF THE DAY AND NIGHT ARE JUST COMING FROM SOME RANDOM HATER TROLL.

 **(404)-420-6969:** DO NOT. CALL ME A TROLL.

 **(404)-420-6969:** DO NOT. EVEN THINK. ABOuT BLOCKING THIS NuMBER.

 **(404)-420-6969:** IF YOu DO IT. I WILL KNOW.

 

You block this ignoramus quicker than you can blink. Half a minute later, another message vibrates:

 

 **(101)-000-0011:** YOu.

 **(101)-000-0011:** HEY.

 **(101)-000-0011:** ANSWER ME. OR ELSE. THIS WILL ONLY GET WORSE.

 **(555)-867-5309:** I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE POINT OF ANY OF THIS IS.

 **(555)-867-5309:** HOW OLD ARE YOU? SERIOUSLY, IF YOU THINK THAT BLOWING ME UP IS GOING TO GET ME TO STOP MAKING MY SHOW, YOU'RE WRONG AS SHIT. GET A LIFE.

 

But these antics just keep up; you get a message, you block it, and he sends more seconds later.

 

You call Sollux and tell him that this asshole has you running in circles, tell him that it's been happening ever since Terezi put your show on blast at school, since Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff sent you those new followers. You absolutely do not tell Sollux that Dave the "obnothious athhole" of SBHJ is someone you're on speaking terms with. You specify that the _texts_ only started happening today, that it was just calls before. He gives you shit for not telling him sooner and says to send him a screenshot of the messages.

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering twinArmageddons at 17:32:08 

 

CG: HERE.

 _CG attached files_ WHOTHEFUCKISTHIS.jpeg, WHOTHEFUCKISTHIS2.jpeg, SERIOUSLYWHOTHEFUCKISTHIS.jpeg

TA: got iit

TA: hold on

 

He takes a bit longer than you expect him to, but it's not like you can complain. He's always having to bail you out of things like this.

 

TA: 2o rever2e phone lookup, background check, and publiic record2 2iite2 are u2le22 when iit come2 two fiindiing thii2 guy

TA: he2 probably u2iing voiice over iip wiith multiiple proxiie2 and ha2 a network of number2 dediicated two fuckiing wiith people

TA: tiime two get a new phone

TA: thii2 ii2 ju2t 2omethiing that can happen when you 2tart two go viiral

TA: not that youre a biig tiime celebriity or anythiing now biighead

TA: don't 2tart getting all priimadonna on me

CG: THANKS.

CG: LOVE YOU TOO.

CG: DID YOU EVER FIND OUT WHO INJECTED THAT WEIRD CODE INTO OUR APP?

CG: BECAUSE MAYBE IT'S THIS GUY.

TA: iill look iinto iit

 

carcinoGeneticist ceased pestering twinArmageddons at 17:59:34 

 

You start begrudgingly setting your textbooks aside and bookmarking them, getting your keys to go and hit up the nearest iThrone retailer, ignoring (mostly) the messages that keep piling in as you drive:

 

 **(696)-969-6969:** I TOLD YOu. THAT I KNOW THINGS. 

 **(696)-969-6969:** DO NOT THINK. THAT I WILL STOP.

 **(696)-969-6969:** I WONT. uNTIL I OWN YOu.

 **(696)-969-6969:** FOR ALL YOu KNOW.

 **(696)-969-6969:** I ALREADY DO.

 **(555)-867-5309:** YAWN, I'M BORED AS FUCK. DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO?

 

 **(911)-911-9111:**  YES.

 **(911)-911-9111:**   I DO.

 **(911)-911-9111:**   KARKAT OLIVER VANTAS.

 

 **(333)-333-3334:**  THIS IS. ONLY THE BEGINNING.

 

 **(110)-111-0111:** IF YOu GET A NEW PHONE. I WILL KNOW.

 

You waste thirty minutes at the iThrone store obtaining a new phone number and a new device, for good measure. You don't really have the money for this and hate to break into the Quadrant's rolling Kickstarter fund, but what else should you do? This person is clearly bent on harassing you. Irritated, you wait as the store clerk transfers your contacts and photos. It's certainly not doing your depression-anxiety combo many favors, the fact that whoever this person is just brandished your middle name at you. But you calm yourself down: so the fucker knows how to Google. Good for him. Karkat Oliver Vantas used to have a Chumbook.

 

As soon as the overworked and underpaid iThrone salesgirl hands your new device over, you run a clean download of GRUBCHECK, the mobile malware app that you've been using for years. It wasn't telling you that your last phone was infected, either. As you play with the phone cautiously in the store, nothing happens. No more messages. It seems, perhaps, that you may start anew.

 

You heave a sigh of relief once you get back into your Acura. For a whole ten minutes, you sit and stare at your phone in the quiet, finding the peacefulness to feel a little too good to be true. Giving up, then, and hoping it's all over, you turn your key in the ignition.

 

Your new phone buzzes.

 

 **(404)-420-6969:** I TOLD YOu. THAT I WOuLD KNOW.

 **(404)-420-6969:** BuT. I ACTuALLY DO. HAVE OTHER THINGS TO BE DOING.

 **(404)-420-6969:** IF YOu WANT. THINGS TO NOT GET WORSE. SAVE THIS NuMBER IN YOUR CONTACTS. AS uu.

 **(404)-420-6969:** EXACTLY LIKE THAT. NO EXCEPTIONS.

 

"Jesus."

 

 **uu:** HAVE YOu DONE IT.

 **KARKAT:** I WOULD TELL YOU, BUT SEEING AS HOW YOU KNOW THINGS, WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME?

 **uu:** HAA HAA.

 **uu:** WE WILL BE IN TOuCH.

 **uu:** KARKAT VANTAS. 

 

 

The rest of the evening, you don't get any more messages. Or calls. It's the first time in a month and a half that you're not hitting the block button. But it's not exactly sitting with you well, that "uu" is suddenly leaving you alone. It makes you think that maybe you should check underneath your car for some kind of GPS tracker, but that's paranoid as fuck, isn't it? You don't want to bother Sollux again yet about it either. It'd be great if you could manage to do anything for yourself.

 

It isn't helping that Kankri has been home all night, too; this month you've been avoiding saying anything about the giant elephant in the room that is his sexuality, mostly because you're terrified of him calling you out on the same length. No one at school knows that you've been seeing Dave in secret, but maybe he can smell it on you, the same way your father must've smelled it on him. 

 

Still, it can't be fucking avoided when Kankri does something intentionally spiteful to you tonight: he goes out of his way to turn your still damp laundry from the dryer upside down in the hallway, sprawled and scattered all over the floor, socks shoved between air conditioning vents, because apparently he couldn't wait the twenty minutes it would've taken you so that he could finish washing _his_ clothes. Okay so it isn't that spiteful, more immature than anything else, but you walk into the hall and witness him in the middle of doing it, his grubby hands all over your things, and his explanation?

 

"I'm just tired of you walking around this house like you're the golden child, with your pathetic liberal radio show and Zoloft-riddled suicidal stoner brain. What if I told Dad about your smoking habits, hm? I bet that'd make him want to kick you out instead."

 

"Trust me, you aren't telling Dad shit."

 

"Or else what?"

 

"Or else I'll tell him about you and your very close affinity to Cronus Ampora's dick."

 

Kankri flushes crimson, furious. "What did you just say?"

 

"You heard me. You can deny it all you want, but I'm not the only person who knows Cronus doesn't stick with anyone who isn't showing him tits. I mean, why  _else_ would you be hanging all over that guy? Seriously, is he like particularly well-endowed and hung in a way that would sicken me to imagine? Fuck, now I'm imagining it. Whatever, it would make a lot of sense, that your high and mighty hoity-toity religious facade is actually just a cover for the latent homosexual you've always been deep inside. But really, could you be even more of a cliche? Your purity ring charade is almost _asking_ for suspicion."

 

"You're a fucking disease."

 

"You too!"

 

You aren't actually going to rat him out, you wouldn't dream of it; not only would it be hells of hypocritical, but as much as you hate your half brother - who's currently rushing down the hall back to his bedroom, slamming the door - you feel bad for him more than anything else. On days where he isn't so scathing, like today? You worry about his future. What are either of you going to do about your secret boyfriends? (Dave is _so_ not your boyfriend, you didn't mean that.) But with Kankri, just now, you'd brandished things so harshly because he'd called you suicidal, mentioned your medication. That was low, and only something he could know, so you went lower.

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

The last weekend of October, on Saturday, you and Dave go to the OC Fair. It’s far enough out that the teenagers around won’t recognize you as Dave and Karkat from Valley View. The Orange County amusement park, welcoming the greater So-Cal valleys from the months of August to November, is spread out over a large convention center and its parking lots, complete with roller coasters, carnival games, exhibits, farm animal petting zoos, and food fried in combinations that shouldn't even be  _allowed._ Dave has spent an inordinate amount of money trying almost everything and trying to convince you to, deep fried frog legs coated in caramel, deep fried hot dogs covered in s'mores, and some oozing double cheeseburger monstrosity that has glazed donuts in place of the buns. You can almost feel yourself gaining ten pounds just looking at it. Dave can eat whatever he wants and still look hot. Lucky bitch.

 

Still, it has been nice to get away with said lucky bitch; Saturday night and you're sitting at the top of a ferris wheel cage with him inside it, telling you knock-knock jokes he's reading from his Spectacles. You are so insanely attracted to him, the way he sits on the dirty metal with his legs wide, his mouth still a little swollen and red from the way you shut his rambling up and made out with him all rough and grating as the cage swung to and fro. He's been released to talk once more, at least for now, and you keep vacillating between _oh my god why him he's so annoying why am I doing this_ and  _fuck he's so amazing he drives me crazy I think I might love this._ He's having so much fun that it's contagious; he takes a moment, takes his shades off, and looks quietly out of the crosshatch windows on either side of you. Watches over the sparkling lights of the fair, the cool breeze fluffing his bangs, showing you his naked face in the moonlight.

 

"I have to get out here at least once a year," he says then. "I come alone sometimes. My Bro used to bring me, Dirk and Jake when we were younger. It's how I discovered that I'm allergic to pretty much any animal ever, one time I tried to pet this little pony in anticipation of riding it thoroughly, with Bro holding my hand the entire time like a real Dad, and I had such a bad allergic reaction that we spent the whole next hour in the first aid tent. Ah, childhood. Okay, I need you to do me a thing, for nostalgia's sake, we're gonna go to the pony ride section after this and I need you to pretend that you're like twelve, so they'll let you on one. You're short enough anyway, their weight capacity's like what, one ten, and you're about that, I know 'cause I can carry you. Don't look at me like that, just ride the goddamn pony, Karkat. Do me a solid."

 

You startle a little when Dave is recognized by several people your age as you walk around the fairgrounds. He says he's "got some friends and fans out here" and probably does all over the country at this point. They stop you two to pull his attention briefly, take selfies with him, posing, and you're sweating in relief that they don't also recognize you, none of them even glance at you, in fact, as you stand to the side and wait for him to finish. But it makes you realize that this is so a date, that maybe Dave is more well known than you understood, and if it is that you're trying to protect your identity by not labeling this anything, shouldn't you  _not_ be with the guy who has a legion on the Internet? Whatever. It's also kind of adorable, that these spare fans seem so excited to see him out. Several kids younger than you ramble on to him about how he's so cool, how they're starting YouTube shows and webcomics because of him, and he smiles and thanks them graciously, so much so that you're starting to forget why you were ever jealous of him.

 

He wins you a giant pink teddy bear, nearly your height, playing the soda toss. Takes a picture of you scowling whilst trying and failing to hold it in your arms comfortably. He refuses to show you the picture, says he won't because you're needlessly insecure of what you look like. This makes you blush, because seriously, you can't see what he sees in you; or maybe you can, when he spends so much time telling you in detail. He tucks you both away at a picnic table in the dark, on the south side of the largest roller coaster, when nine thirty comes around and fair traffic is starting to slow. Whispers into the shell of your ear that he's been thinking about kissing your stomach and nosing the hair there all night, that he's "obsessed with your sideburns" and what does that even  _mean_ _?_ He explains, toying with the curls in his finger, that each one of them has a particular shape, "does its own thing," and he's started to memorize them.

 

When he drives you back to the Valley, you're starting to feel like you can't get on the air and be KK, after this. Instead, you'd rather stay with Dave at his house overnight, and sure, it's kind of mandatory that you host a Quadrant show every single night, but is it, really? There was a week or two where you, Nepeta, Sollux and Equius were still in recovery from your WBFN firing, where your messages about nightly hiatuses were met with not much more than fans being understanding, posting that they would just catch you next time. The complaints were from the wishy-washy one-time lurkers anyway. So you pester twinArmageddons, arsenicCatnip, and centaursTesticle as a group, tell them something came up, and then swiftly go offline (shut your phone down entirely) so that you can't see their questioning responses. It's shitty and selfish, and you feel bad, but you haven't felt this good in real life in quite a long time.

 

Sunday morning, you take your leave from Dave. He's hardly awake when you shuffle out of his bed, mumbling something nonsensical that has to be part of whatever he's dreaming about. It's tempting to kiss him conscious to say goodbye, or maybe hit him with a pillow. But you let him stay tangled in his sheets. Walk outside to go get your Acura from where it's parked _way_ down the street from his mansion.

 

When you get home at nine A.M., it's early enough that no one is awake but your stepmother. She doesn't say anything to you from the kitchen when you let yourself in with your key in silence, immediately float upstairs to your bedroom, lock the door. You turn your phone back on, letting your apps update over WiFi. Pesterchum has dozens of notifications, but it isn't on your list of things to do Right The Fuck Now to deal with Team Adorabloodthirsty's disappointment in you, apologize to them for suddenly disappearing and get back to business mode, think about tonight's episode production. That can happen in the next few hours. You guess. At this moment, you'd still like to be high school student Karkat, who just went on a date last night, and stay distracted; Snapcrap is only something you use sparingly, but you and Dave are friends on there right now, so you go and check his feed.

 

Most of his photography from last night is of the fair itself, bright items and locations and #views, with no hints at who he was actually there with. At most, he's screenshot some of the selfies that his fans took with him and tagged him in, cross-posting them to his account. It occurs to you from the time stamps in his Story that he dumped these pictures as they were happening in the moment, and you did see him typing into his iThrone here and there, but since you aren't the kind of teenager who live-social-medias his life like everyone else, it... well, it makes you feel less normal than usual.

 

And then you see the picture that  _more than_ hints that he was with you:

 

It is you, Karkat Oliver Vantas, standing there in neon lights, staring at him with your large, dark eyes, clutching the pink teddy bear and giving him the finger. Time stamp: twelve hours ago. His caption, beneath your figure:

 

#kksbiggestfan ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎

 

 _And it's been up for twelve hours._ Dave's Snapcrap isn't just an off-shoot account that he shows to only SBHJ fans, @davestrider is one encompassing social media entity, online and off, same handle and same life on every page, and Terezi and Meenah and John and Cronus and  _everyone_ has probably looked at this -

 

He answers the phone on the first ring.

 

“YOU POSTED THAT PICTURE OF ME ON YOUR STORY?!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Dave.
> 
> I just wanted to say that much of this story was inspired by listening to Frank Ocean's [Blonde](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diIFhc_Kzng&list=PLzoqV_VvWIwGzYTcm3r1JwqgQOBXTvKyd), from which Dave sings this chapter. I mean seriously, Frank is the ultimate bi-con that all of us deserve <3
> 
> Chapters Eight and Nine are on the way, but Caliborn is a hot mess to characterize lol
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have like, passing knowledge of how hacking works. My wild fictionalization of the techniques involved notwithstanding lol, here this is

 

 _Are you worth your weight in gold?_  
_'Cause you're behind my eyelids when I'm all alone_  
_Hey stranger I want you to catch me like a cold_  
_You and God both got the guns_  
_When you shoot I think I'll duck_  
_I led the revolution in my bedroom_  
_And I set all the zippers free_  
_We said “no more war, no more clothes”_  
_Give me peace, o_ _h, kiss me_  
_Fix me or conflict me_  
_I’ll take anything_

 - Panic! At The Disco, “[Hurricane](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfXPW1KeVR8)”

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

“Karkat.”

 

“What, Kanaya.”

 

“You know what this means, don’t you.”

 

You're out now. It’s a thing. You guess. Show’s over. Everybody go home.

 

Though there was no explicit declaration of either yours or Dave's homosexuality in his picture of you, his string of hearts and the caption - the fact that he depicted anything adoring of you at all - have led people's minds there, apparently. You sit with Kanaya at your L-shaped table that morning before homeroom, staring at everybody staring at you. Of course they all know, Dave is the most talked about person on your campus basically. He deleted the photo after your scathing request, after you cursed him out for eight minutes straight _without_ mentioning the fact that these rumors about the two of you dating will likely get into the hands and ears of your brother Kankri, who you just threatened with rumors about he and Cronus. If his petty ass runs and tells your father? You don’t wanna think about it.

 

Dave was sorely apologetic when he realized what he'd done; you watch him now, sitting with John, surrounded by friends, shades on face, blushing visibly even from your distance. He said he absolutely didn't do it to out you, "people already know about me being bi and I forget everyone isn't like me," but rather that he was "just so proud of you" and "how far we've come" and "last night was only as special as it was because of you" and _your heart hurts._ It's not that you aren't starting to fall for him, relieved he is apparently for you too, you are into this sentimental piece of sappy shit far deeper than you're even comfortable with, but it's just that -

 

Rose sits down at the table with you and Kanaya, across from you like she’s the therapist, you’re her clients.

 

"Good morning," she says to you, stirring her paper cup of tea.

 

"Yeah, not really seeing what's so good about it," you say.

 

"So."

 

"Yep."

 

"I figured that when he pulled you aside at his house party, that was the beginning of him announcing his romantic inclinations towards you. You have been acting differently ever since, and so has he, though not in a way that I think anyone who isn't also same sex devoted and tuned in to you would've noticed. Also, Dave may have mentioned something to me in our sixth period several weeks ago."

 

"He did  _what?"_

 

"He didn't do it intentionally. He mentioned that you introduced him to this lesbian punk band, whose members are dating, that I know has been a fixture of the Quadrant's wall ever since Jade brought them to it. It was more of a slip of the tongue, intermixed with him attempting to bond with me about 'sapphic things,' but it was the way he said it. 'So last night Karkat introduced me' without any introductory disclaimers as to how you two would even be in a nighttime scenario where you were sharing obscure music groups, said like it happens all of the time, perhaps assuming I was obviously in the know. You've also left him several hickeys over the course of the last month. I sit behind him in class."

 

Kanaya places her hands on yours and Rose’s briefly. "I have to get to homeroom early. I'm helping with the Thanksgiving food drive."

 

"Whether or not what the two of you have is genuine," Rose continues, after Kanaya leaves, "though I can assume so, because of his enthusiasm when he spoke to me about you, and how you stare at him, I have to wonder why he would want to hide it so much. Sharing a picture of you on social media suddenly but never interacting with you or showing he cares about you in public makes me want to kill him, obviously, for being, what, ashamed to be seen with you in front of his popular friends?"

 

"No, it wasn't him who wanted to hide it. It was me."

 

"Pray tell?"

 

"I can't - " you stare behind Rose for a moment, at Kankri's arrival to his friend group, you left early this morning so that he couldn't possibly barrage you - "I _can't_. Kankri's hypocritical ass has it out for me right now, our dad is homophobic as shit as we just recently learned and it's not off the table entirely that he might kick me out of the house if he found out that I was offending God."

 

Kankri is talking to Meenah, and whatever she's saying, laughing and roaring into his shocked face, she looks pretty into it. Terezi also just showed up, is pulling John away from Dave's side to talk to him alone. Dave looks after them for a moment, and then absconds with no one following him.

 

Terezi and John are both looking at you now.

 

"I'm sorry," Rose says, and her hand on yours draws your attention back to her gorgeous face. "If it does happen that you have nowhere to go, you can always stay with me and my mom."

 

Just her saying that makes you tear up instantly.

 

"Thanks."

 

This is why you didn't want her knowing, because anyone showing any ounce of sympathy towards you makes you reel, makes you wish you weren't so helpless that the people around you have to take care of you so intimately.

 

"Have you spoken to Dave since he posted the photo?"

 

"Yeah, immediately after I saw it. Twelve hours too late. He should be avoiding me until I feel like letting him back into my sight. _If_ I let him back into it. It's not even that I care so much if half of this inbred school thinks I'm gay, what with basically everyone here being bi or secretly bi as I'm now finding out, people have always thought I was anyway because of Kanaya - it's the specific few people, my _brother_ and that loaded gun _,_ the fact that it's Dave - it's fucking _Terezi_. She's the only reason he and I have ever had anything to do with each other, and what the hell are people going to think about that? Everyone knows that she and I were together, that he and her were together, and doesn't it make me look like I'm just fixing to hit her sloppy seconds after our break up? He could have _anyone._ I called her out for letting him walk right in and out of her life whenever he felt like it, and now aren't I just as bad? The bed wasn't even cold before I got into it."

 

Rose is staring behind you now; the scent of honey-tinted lotion lets you know Terezi has just walked up.

 

"Hello, Karkat," Terezi says neutrally, smiling just, doesn't help that she's wearing red sunglasses -

 

"Terezi, if this is about him, I can explain - "

 

"It's fine." Terezi raises her hands, one emboldened with her bedazzled cane. "I don't care."

 

"Seriously, I - "

 

"Seriously, I don't care. I just have one question. How long?"

 

"How long what?"

 

"How long have you liked him? Was it before me, or was it after I chose him over you?"

 

"See, you keep saying that you don't care, but the fact that you're asking that is - "

 

"Really, it is just a question. Collecting documentary evidence. Seeing as how the prosecution has been accused by _you_ on more than one occasion for being insane for ever catching feelings for him, in the past, by the way, I will not like him ever again, you can have him, the prosecution just wonders how much of that was projection.”

 

“Oh my god, can you stop with the cryptic lawyer speak?”

 

“The prosecution has no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

The first bell rings, and people shift, and Rose is staring between you chin in hands with so much _intrigue -_

 

“Nevermind,” Terezi says. “Saved by the bell.” She clicks her cane to the ground like a gavel. “I am not even sure that it’s worth it to know, anyway. I think I have already come to my conclusions.”

 

She vanishes faster than you could chase after her, as is always the case.

 

“What the fuck was that? I don’t know how I’m going to get through this day.”

 

“It's okay. We’ll be right here with you."

 

Rose walks you all the way to your homeroom, but before leaving, she sends her advice:

 

“I know you probably don’t want to, and I don’t blame you, but you should talk to him about this in person. Sooner rather than later. Find out why he really wanted to post that picture.”

 

In class, as Ms. Paint reads off morning announcements, you hide your phone under your desk to check the Quadrant app, trying to get your mind off things. When you do, you find that the app’s interface has been completely altered: the phrase "HAILLORDENGLISH," flashing multi-colored, sits on a blindingly neon green background, no navigation icons, no semblance of any functionality, and your guts twist. Shit, this is the last thing you need right now, whoever injected you guys before sliding in to finish the job. Clicking with your thumb only reveals a subtitle, flashing in black and white: “QuADRANT SuCKS.”

 

CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] at 08:15:46 opened private bulletin board TEAM ADORABLOODTHIRSTY.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CCG at 08:16:01 opened memo on board TEAM ADORABLOODTHIRSTY.

CCG attached file XKJFKSDFLS.jpeg

CCG: LAST NIGHT, NOTHING WAS WRONG WITH IT, AND NOW I WAKE UP TO THIS. ZERO FUNCTIONALITY.

CCG: WHAT THE FUCK? DO YOURS LOOK LIKE THIS TOO?

CURRENT arsenicCatnip [CAC] at 08:17:21 responded to the memo.

CAC: :33 < omg yes mine does

CAC attached file wut.jpeg

CAC: :33 < haillordenglish?? what does that even mean???

CCG: I DO KNOW THIS, THAT "QuADRANT SuCKS" LINE WAS OBVIOUSLY MEANT FOR ME FROM THAT GUY WHO TEXTED AND CALLED SO MUCH I HAD TO CHANGE MY GODDAMN PHONE NUMBER. THAT'S HOW HE TYPES. LOWERCASE U'S.

CURRENT twinArmageddons [CTA] at 08:18:36 responded to the memo.

CTA: iim iin cla22 but iim on one of my boxe2 2o iim goiing two try two

CTA: fuck

CTA: whoever thii2 ii2 he2 u2ed kk2 giithub two change our 2hiit and reencrypted iit 2o ii cant get iin

CTA: iitll take me a miinute two decrypt iit wiith appcrack 2o iim takiing the app offliine and off the app 2tore and 2omebody need2 two tell our u2er2 two delete theiir copiie2

CTA: kk change your pa22word2 on EVERYTHIING obviiou2ly and maybe dont 2et them a2 2uch obviiou2 thiing2 a2 ILOVETEREZI69

CCG: FUCK YOU.

CAC: :33 < ta is it a virus??

CTA: undetermiined but two be on the 2afe 2iide we 2hould a22ume the wor2t

CTA: nep where the fuck ii2 eq

CAC: :33 < hes in class i texted him but he must have his phone on silent

 

 

"Karkat, can you please put your phone away?"

 

You wait nineteen agonizing minutes, tapping your feet under your desk, until the bell rings to release you for first period.

 

You type away on your phone as you walk through the halls, regenerating new passwords for every account you have that you can think of at the moment, walking into the closest men's room and locking yourself in a bathroom stall. You take your tablet out of your backpack and see both that Equius still has not responded to the memo, and that Sollux has been harassing you for disappearing from the chat and for somehow allowing all of this to happen. It was you, it was "uu," but what were you supposed to do to prevent this?

 

CCG: FOR YOUR INFORMATION THOLLUX, I USE A PASSWORD MANAGER LIKE ANY OTHER DECENT MOTHERFUCKER WITH ANXIETY ABOUT SECURITY CONCERNS.

CTA: ha2 that guy 2tiill been textiing you

CCG: NO, I TOLD YOU HE STOPPED AFTER I SAVED HIM AS A CONTACT.

CTA: fuck you re2pondiing at ALL two hii2 2M2 and phone call2 probably gave hiim acce22 two your 2hiit dont you know anythiing about hackiing

CCG: CAN YOU GET OFF MY FUCKING BACK? I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD ANY INFORMATION TO GIVE YOU THAT DAY HAD I NOT RESPONDED, WE WOULDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT GENERAL DIRECTION THIS FLAMING BACKWARDS APP CRASH WAS COMING FROM IF I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE HIS TYPING PATTERN.

CCG: WEREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE LOOKING INTO THIS GUY ANYWAY? SINCE YOU KNOW SO GODDAMN MUCH ABOUT HACKING, WHO IS HE? WHY DIDN'T YOU DOXX HIM FAST ENOUGH TO PREVENT THIS? YOU'RE THE ONE WHO WAS IN CHARGE OF THE ENCRYPTION AND IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN BEAT AT YOUR OWN GAME.

CTA:  do you know how hard iit ii2 two track 2omebody down when they could be anywhere iin the world??? he2 routiing everythiing he2 doiing through vpn2 ba2ed who the fuck know2 where, iit2 liike cha2iing 2omebody iinvii2iible through a maze, ii dont work for the fbii

CAC: :33 < please stop arguing guys the important thing is that we figure out if we can fix this!

CCG: FROM WHAT I'M GETTING, IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE WE CAN.

CCG: RIGHT?

CTA: have you changed your pa22word2 yet

CCG: OBVIOUSLY I FUCKING CHANGED MY PASSWORDS, HOLY SHIT

CTA: but no even iif we backup to an old ver2iion or ju2t rewriite the 2hiit entiirely iit2 probably not worth iit 2ince we dont know what el2e he ha2 acce22 two now

CTA: our web2iite2 encryptiion ii2 much better than the app2 2o that 2hould 2tiill be good for now but ii dont know iif thi2 guy wiill bother tryiing two take that down two or iif he ha2 your old pa22word two our 2erver2

CTA: kk 2eriou2ly get on the forum2 and 2ay 2omethiing

 

"I don't have ten hands, give me a minute," you whisper at the screen.  

 

The bell that says you should be in first period rings, but you stay put. You'll sit in detention after school for being late, you don't give a fuck, it's not exactly like you're dying to face your classmates or go home right after school anyways.

 

The main website appears to be safe and unchanged; you log in as moderator, ifIhatemyselfsomuchwhydontIhatemarrymyself, and get to the forums post haste. There is already a thread about the app malfunctioning started by user britneyspearscansuckit, where she and lambcurrywiththeshot, tatsandedm420, and several others are speculating what happened.

 

 _ifihatemyselfsomuchwhydontihatemarrymyself:_ HEY @everyone. AS YOU CAN SEE, THE QUADRANT APP WAS HACKED INTO THIS MORNING. WE'RE DOING WHAT WE CAN TO TRY AND GET IT BACK UP, BUT IN THE MEANTIME, TA IS SUGGESTING THAT YOU DON'T TRY USING IT ANY LONGER AND THAT YOU SHOULD DELETE IT UNTIL WE FIX WHATEVER'S WRONG WITH IT. I'M SORRY. <3 KK

 _burymewiththiship:_ *gasps* hi kk! i love you!

 _lambcurrywiththeshot:_ 0_0 He lives. He hasn't been on the forums in forever.

 _britneyspearscansuckit:_ hey dude! thanks, i'll let my other friends who have the app know. hope you're having a good day despite this shitty shit. will there still be a show tonight?

 _tatsandedm420:_ hey bro ive actually heard of this haillordenglish before. my friend in copenhagen got his credit union account drained last year and it was this whole big thing, like hundreds of people. haillordenglish is like some kind of calling card, u know how they brag. police never got em tho.

 _fefefe:_ hi kk! we love you. anyone here watch mr robot? 

 _lambcurrywiththeshot:_ Damn. What would someone in copenhagen want to do with this app?

 _tatsandedm420:_ they might not actually be in copenhagen. 

 _burymewiththisship:_ @fefefe omg yes. tyrell/elliot OTP

 _fefefe:_ @burymewiththisship kjasdkfjsl same theyre just so *clenches fist* dysfunctional

 _ifihatemyselfsomuchwhydontihatemarrymyself:_ @tatsandedm420 THANK YOU, THAT'S ACTUALLY REALLY HELPFUL. @britneyspearscansuckit HEY DUDE RIGHT BACK AT YOU, I MISS YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS' WEIRD SHIT. AS OF NOW, YES, THERE WILL BE A SHOW TONIGHT. @everyone I KNOW I HAVEN'T LURKED THE FORUMS IN A WHILE, REAL LIFE IS KICKING MY ASS, BUT I'LL BE BACK WHEN I CAN. YOU'RE THE BEST. <3 KK

 

CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] at 09:29:30 responded to the memo.

CCG: LOOK UP EVERYTHING YOU CAN FIND ON THE KEYWORD 'HAILLORDENGLISH'

CTA: already on iit

CCT: D --> We're doing so

CCT: D --> Similar, yet rare works bearing this mark are ransoms of software and entire systems

CCT: D --> Though usually there is a financial objective to be had

CCT: D --> We don't have any money

CCT: D --> Is there any way that you know this person

CCG: I SINCERELY FUCKING DOUBT IT? HE KNOWS MY FULL NAME, I FIGURE HE GOT THAT OFF OF GOOGLE OR SOME SHIT.

CCG: AS I TOLD YOU GUYS THOUGH, HE'S SOMEHOW ABLE TO TEXT AND CALL ME NO MATTER WHAT I CHANGE MY PHONE NUMBER TO.

CCG: WHICH IS UNSETTLING, TO SAY THE VERY LEAST.

CTA: ha2 he 2aid anythiing two you thii2 morniing yet

CCG: NO, AND I HOPE YOU'RE NOT SUGGESTING I MESSAGE HIM FIRST, SEEING AS HOW NOT THIRTY MINUTES AGO, YOU WERE BLASTING ME FOR EVER ENGAGING WITH HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

CAC: :33 > sorry guys physics lab ill meow in later

CCG: YOU'RE GOOD.

CTA: fuck no iif thii2 guy ii2 a ran2omer iif he contact2 you iin exchange for the app or anythiing dont giive him 2hiit

CTA: quadrant ha2 been fun and all but 2aviing iit ii2nt worth iit

 

 

 _Saving it isn't worth it._ It's the first time you've legitimately considered that your project has become more stress than it has enjoyment. Equius would have to find another show or something to work on for the rest of his semester, but shouldn't he, at this point? Regardless, first period is almost over and you're still sitting on a toilet in the senior wing, refreshing thequadrant.com on your tablet to make sure it's still up. Checking your bank account on your phone, because if "uu" was able to crack your GitHub password, the others may've gone with it. Checking what little social media you even have to make sure he isn't impersonating you.

 

How you're ever going to leave this stall, you don't know.

 

The next bell rings and you startle, watching under the door as feet shuffle in and out, listening as chatter overlaps. You don't move until Kanaya pesters you near the end of the passing period, asking if you're okay.

 

You finally find it in you to go, then, waiting until you think everyone is out of the bathroom to leave your stall like you weren't just in it for a good hour. You wash your hands for good measure, extra hot water and soap.

 

The door opens as you dry, and it's Dave.

 

"Oh, shit." He's still blushing, has he been all morning? "I didn't know you were in here, I swear."

 

You're still mad at him, but damn if he isn’t just beautiful. "No, I'm in your territory, so I should just leave it - "

 

"I - wait. I'm really, really sorry, I know I said it like a million times yesterday after you got done yellin' at me for eight whole minutes straight, and that's not a complaint, I completely deserved that shit and it was actually really impressive, not to make light or fuckin' belittle your rightful anger or - fuck."

 

"Are you done?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Listen, you know what? You could've just  _asked me._ If you wanted to tag that picture with hearts and basically announce to the whole school and your millions of followers that you spend some of your nights exclusively with a little ragheaded thing like me, you could've asked. I may not have said yes, but I might've at least considered the idea."

 

"Would you have, though? I know I said I was cool with it being a secret, but that was only 'cause I knew you wanted it to be, and fuck. I really like you, Karkat. Fucking. A lot."

 

It occurs to you that this is the first time he's ever said anything like this at school; in fact, it's the first time you've been face to face and close enough to kiss on school grounds. Not because he hasn't wanted to, apparently, but because you're afraid to let him show you. You're mad, you're still mad as shit, for all you know Kankri found someone with a screenshot of Dave's pic of you and has it saved to show your dad "your boyfriend" later, for all you know, Terezi thinks you're a loser for loving a guy who left her -

 

But rumor's already out, and you're riled up just _looking_ at Dave's stupid emotional face, and if Kankri's just going to tell your dad anyway, and Terezi's going to judge, let them fucking judge this -

 

You pull him in to kiss you, hard, right there in front of the sinks and mirrors, and he tastes so good; you let your aggression out on him, channeling the energy that spurned your tears this morning. He's soft and hot and pliant for you, more than he has ever been, letting you push him up against the cold ridge of one of the sinks until someone opens up the door beside you.

 

Some senior guy you don't know.

 

He gives a Dave a quick nod and Dave trades him a "yo" and you must've pulled away in time, or at least whoever this guy is isn't squeamish about dudes getting it on in the bathrooms; how many high school movies have you seen where jocks and bullies jump anyone who does anything even remotely gay or "feminine" in the toilet areas? It's not like you have any real idea about this kind of etiquette.

 

The bell rings above your heads, and now you aren't ready to leave again. Watching Dave catch his breath as the guy behind you holds his dick above the urinal in one hand and texts with the other. He leaves quick, without washing his hands.

 

"Did you know that guy?" you ask Dave.

 

"Yeah, that's Marco. He never washes his hands."

 

"This is not me totally forgiving you, by the way. I still have Kankri to deal with and Terezi is going to hate me forever, or maybe she really doesn't give a shit and was just saying all that prosecution garbage earlier to joke and prod with me? I don't know - stop, don't talk, I'm not done - and I'm probably never going to know. My point is you're still in the dog house with my collar and leash on you until I say you're not, got it?"

 

Dave hesitates, smiling and breathy, lips kiss-swollen.

 

"Dog collar and leash, huh?"

 

You could just slap him across the face.

 

"Oh, please slap me, beautiful," he says, and you just said that out loud, didn't you? "I've been bad and I deserve it - "

 

"Get out of this bathroom before I never speak to you again."

 

"That'll do it, right, got it. Sorry. Later."

 

You wait another minute or two after he's gone, even though you're sure the halls are empty because you should already be in second period. Fix your hair a little bit, ignore the dark circles under your eyes in the mirror, and finally venture out.

 

It was like this in your classes and around the halls when Terezi broke up with you and started seeing Dave officially; whispers, sympathetic looks. Though this time, they're less sympathetic than they are - jealous, maybe? More disbelief and maybe even heavily-veiled respect than "oh you poor sad fuck" or anything else. You can hear the ends of "...with  _him_ _"_ between two sophomore girls in Chemistry, and between two others, "...wonder if it's _big_." You can't tell if they're wondering about him or you regarding that last one, but regardless, being the subject of random conversation all day and not being able to really _hear it_  gradually chips away at your patience.

 

At the start of lunch, after you've been served your detention slip for later, you're waiting for Kanaya and Rose to meet you at your locker, messaging Nepeta on TEAM ADORABLOODTHIRSTY, when your brother finally tracks you down. You've been stalwartly avoiding him. You're surprised Cronus isn't following him like he has been the rest of the day.

 

"You know, I just find it _very_ inconsistent," Kankri begins, "that you had the nerve to call  _me_ a cliche the other day. You and Dave, well, you're as regular as they come. He's the dumb jock with the heart of gold and you're the tsundere."

 

"Oh my god, I can't believe I just had to hear you use the word tsundere _._ "

 

"And what about  _your_ latent homosexuality? At least you can't prove to Dad that I've been doing anything, other than hearsay. I have a screenshot."

 

You really know him too well. 

 

"I didn't say anything," you start, and fuck your heart is really racing; it's not that you even  _like_ your house that much, it'd sure be great as fuck to get away from them for a while, but possibly never going back again? Knowing that your dad really thinks so little of you that something so small could cause him to snap? "I didn't say anything to him even though I could've - "

 

"I know." For a moment, he visibly softens, glances down, and you think maybe it's recognition of your shared fear. Enough that he should  _really just drop this and let bygones be bygones, maybe._ "But I still might tell him."

 

Just as you're about to lunge forward at him, and he flinches, Meenah comes up between the two of you, slinging a strong arm around your shoulder.

 

"This guy bothering you?" she says to you.

 

"Meenah," Kankri groans, "this conversation is literally none of your - "

 

"Fishness, yeah, I get it. I'm still gonna insert myself anyway, 'cause I can tell you're givin' my cute friend here a hard time for no gotdamn reason as usual. You wanna jet? Or you wanna listen to me tell him about that time your junior year when you - "

 

"Ugh, okay, _fine_."

 

Kankri walks away, and you're grateful for Meenah's deus ex machina. Even if you're sweating buckets under her arm, watching Kankri go. He wouldn't, he really wouldn't, would he - 

 

"You okay?" Meenah says to you, coming around and stooping down a little in front of you, turning your chin up with both of her hands. You're surprised you're this okay with her hands on your face, but granted, she's a fucking goddess and she really did save you from probably hitting your brother. You don't know what was about to come over you.

 

"I'm - " you sigh, shaking, and she lets go of your face. "I'm sure you've heard."

 

"About you and blondie brownie, yeah I heard. Saw more like. That pic of you was cute as I don't know what the fuck. Even if I figure that wasn't the way you wanted to go about it. Dave means well and shit."

 

"Yeah, I know."

 

"Now your big mouth brother on the other hand, he means Satan's work, probably. Porrim and Aranea think he's so chilly as like some front for his heart of gold, but I'on know some days. Some days I think I ain't seen a ounce of genuine happiness in him since the day I met him. He's try'na tell your pops about you and blondie?"

 

“Yes, which is fucking bullshit, because my brother’s the biggest, most flaming, raging homo I think I’ve ever met!”

 

“Yeah, we know. He and Cronus’s shit is so tired, Karkat, they are a goddamn glubbing bear-twink cliche. Trust me, your boy was ruthlessly clownfished on by all of us when we caught _them_ fishing in the back of Cronus’s Mustang summer of junior year. Really caught, like naked buck and everything  _caught_. Don’t worry your head about those two dumbass narcissists who are universeashells more in love with themselves than they are with each other. People like them’ll be miserable together for the rest of their lives.”

 

She’s not student body president for nothing.

 

"You tell me if he says somefin'," Meenah says now, glancing behind you, and you turn to see Aranea waving at her. "He's temporarily under my friendship circle protection, but it's muh-fuckers who wouldn't have a  _problem_ deckin' his pretty ass in the throat. Just say the word." 

 

 

You, Kanaya and Rose spend your lunch away from most everyone, taking your seats in the Japanese Arts/Anime Club's bonsai tree garden, where some of the members of the club are also lounging, loosely spread. You haven't been to a meeting since freshman year, it was kind of more Terezi's thing than yours and she kept it after the break up. But they were always cool, nerds in the good way, if they heard about whoever  _the_ Dave Strider's dating this month, they really don't give a shit. They smile and nod at you just like they would any other day, and you're glad Kanaya had the idea to spend your lunch out here. She always knows what you need.

 

This detention after school is something you're not looking forward to, even if it's less than you are to go home and discover your stuff scattered all over the front lawn, as Kankri's beating you home, but it's what you get for skipping first period. You haven't been to detention since you and Terezi got caught skipping last year, so you forget that it's an entire  _hour_ and how crowded it usually is. There are only thirty desks in the room and probably fifty of you here today, so several of you are forced to sit on the floor along the back walls. Vriska's here, she's always here, so are Gamzee and Tavros, and so is, miraculously, Dave. You aren't sure if you should sit near him, where he's hunched over with a pile of his stuff in one corner, but you see the way Vriska stares at both of you with her eyebrows raised, like  _aren't you two supposed to *sit together* now?  Or are you too scaaaaaaaared that people will call you gaaaaaaaay?_ This pisses you off - Dave hasn't even noticed, scribbling something into a notebook - so you give that sentiment the metaphorical finger, sit down next to him on the floor. He looks pleasantly surprised.

 

"What're you in detention for?" he asks you.

 

"I skipped first period. You?"

 

"Instead of dissecting my dead pig, I made it a paper gown, tied it to some strings, and walked it around the classroom like a puppet."

 

"Oh god, you're not joking, are you."

 

"Nope. I'm deadass."

 

The teacher in charge of detention has written the codes from the student handbook that you're to repeat, writing them over and over on loose leaf paper, on the whiteboard up ahead of you. It's a lot of vague shit about personal honor and respecting other students and yourself and dress code policies that none of the administration really enforces. It's boring and it's stuffy as hell in the room, all the body heat and the heater cranked, even though it's November and southern California doesn't even _have_ winter. Dave started a note to pass to you a while ago, and you've been writing in sloppy script to him back. You haven't passed notes like this since - you and Kanaya were in sixth grade, probably. It gives you this nostalgia for a time and place you're sure you'll never get back. It makes you never want to leave this room.

 

-  _so are we really good?_

_\- DEFINE "GOOD."_

_\- i mean youre sittin next to me right now and by the way your thighs look great in those jeans like youre givin the kid heart attacks over here call 911_

_\- but youve seemed kinda sad all day and i know i fucked up_

_\- you dont have to forgive me yet if you dont want to_

_\- WELL, LOOK. IF I ALREADY KNOW I'M GOING TO FORGIVE YOU EVENTUALLY, WHAT'S THE POINT IN HOLDING OUT? SURE, I'M GOING TO BE MAD AT YOU FOR A MINUTE, BUT YOU CAN JUST MAKE THAT UP TO ME WITH ANGRY SEX UNTIL I'VE GOT IT OUT ALL OUT OF MY SYSTEM._

_\- heard can do where do i sign ill sign in blood_

_\- I JUST NEED YOU TO TALK TO ME BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY DECISIONS THAT INVOLVE BOTH OF US. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'VE NOTICED, BUT I'M KIND OF A LONER BY CHOICE. YEAH IT'D BE GREAT TO BE MR. POPULAR SOMETIMES, BUT I ALSO FUCKING HATE PEOPLE AND HATE THE SPOTLIGHT. YOU SHINED THE BIGGEST BRIGHTEST ONE IN MY FACE WITH THAT LITTLE STUNT. LIKE I'VE SAID, IF IT WASN'T THIS SCHOOL, GIVEN MY HISTORY AND MY LIFE HERE, AND IF I WASN'T HAVING PROBLEMS KEEPING MY ACT ON THE QUADRANT UNDER CONTROL, I'D BE FINE WITH THE PUBLIC GESTURES. SHIT BEING WHAT IT IS? I NEED YOU TO ASK ME FIRST._

_\- okay_

_\- wait whats going on with quadrant_

_\- LONG STORY. I'D JUST LIKE TO FORGET ABOUT IT FOR A WHILE._

_\- cool_

_\- mind if i_

 

He adjusts his backpack over his lap so that it's partially covering yours, places his notebook down on top of it, keeps one hand beneath the bag and the other on his page writing handbook codes. You glance over at your neighbors, who aren't close enough (a third of them are asleep) to see that Dave's hand is under the bag, feeling you up over your jeans. You continue writing as well, but you're handwriting's starting to go all jagged, and Dave chuckles when he realizes this, stops writing himself for a moment and steadies your hand. This is when you stop him, and write again:

 

_\- CAN I COME OVER AFTER THIS? I DON'T REALLY WANNA GO HOME._

_\- sure_

_\- always_

 

 

♋️

 

 

You sit in Dave's den, feeling relaxed from his massage, which he gave you for almost an hour on the couch where you now sit, and continue to type complaints to TEAMADORABLOODTHIRSTY on what is officially the longest memo you've all kept going. Sollux's debugger has finally broken through the encryption on your app, but he says that what he found is a fucking mess, and almost certainly a virus. He's still reverse engineering it to find out exactly what it will do, but he doesn't want to have to type what he's discovered so far, would rather just tell you - you don't blame him, his typing quirk is annoying as fuck and you don't know how he keeps up with it. Nepeta requests that your conference be over webcam, since she's currently out in her garden tending to it and is about to not be able to use her hands. Also, she misses you. You try and get out of that, given where you are, but Equius and Sollux don't seem to get why you're so opposed. You just aren't going to mention anything unless they do. You text Dave that you'll be working and will need silence down here for him to see when he gets out of the shower upstairs. You'll see him come back down the stairs in time, anyway, if he tries showing himself.

 

Your laptop lights up with four split screens, each of your friends in three of the boxes, and you in another.

 

"Whoa," says Nepeta immediately, when your image pops up. "KK, where are you?"

 

There goes that. "A friend's place," you say.

 

"Is your friend a millionaire?"

 

"Technically, no."

 

Sollux begins by pasting segments of the virus code into the chat. You definitely understand the least of what he's talking about, and it makes you frustrated, but it appears that your app is now malware that is a part of some larger program, set to run in the future. Sollux isn't sure if simply deleting the app off of a device will stop what's going to unfold, so he suggests that all of you buy new phones, and  _fuck_ you just had to buy a new phone. You point out that "uu" seems to get especially pissy with you whenever you swap devices, and Sollux says to do it anyway. What about the thousands of people out there who downloaded the app? Sollux says the responsible thing to do is to let them know, apologize profusely, and issue refunds. You know that, but this is the last thing you want to do. The Quadrant is sinking.

 

You stand up with your laptop to stretch your legs and move to the couch opposite of the one you've been slouched in, forgetting temporarily that this gives your webcam a view of the staircase leading down into the den. When Dave comes down the stairs still wet, wrapped only in a white towel that he holds loosely around his hips with a fist, you practically drop your laptop to the floor; scramble to pick it up as Dave comes closer, stares in curiosity at the little pictures on the screen, and your face is red as  _shit._

 

"'sup," he says to them.

 

"Oh!" Nepeta says. "Who are you?" 

 

"I'm Dave. Who are you?"

 

"Dave! The mystery guy who called and sent us all those followers? Sweet Rick and Hella James?"

 

"That's exactly what I'm changing their names to."

 

"Wait, hold on," Sollux says, inching closer to his camera, "KK, you actually  _hang out_ with the guy who'th the reathon we're in the fucking meth we're in right now?"

 

"What meth?" Dave turns to you. "If your friend's on meth, man, tell him to quit. That shit kills." 

 

"I thwear to god - "

 

" _He_ didn't break our app," you start to interject.

 

"Yeah, but if he had left uth alone, we wouldn't be ath deep in bugth and - "

 

"Don't even," you bark, "you were the one who said  _literally_ that same night that you didn't care how many trolls he sent us as long as it was free publicity."

 

"I think I've seen you in a meme before," Equius says.

 

"You probably have," Dave says.

 

"Guys, will you give me like, five or ten? I promise, I'll be back."

 

"Whatever," Sollux says.

 

You click offline, close your laptop, and heave a deep sigh.  _Wooo-sahhhhh._ Relaxation. This day is almost over.

 

Not really.

 

"Were those your Quadrant friends?" Dave says to you.

 

"Yeah. Sollux, Nepeta, Equius."

 

"Aw. This might sound weird, but they look exactly how I've always imagined 'em. Listenin' to 'em, when you describe 'em to me."

 

That is the sweetest thing, that you don't even really  _get_ why you find so sweet, that when he sits on the couch right next to you, you tell him to stand back up.

 

"Drop the towel," you say.

 

"Yes, sir."

 

Finally, at six o'clock, you wager that you should deal with getting home. It's tempting to call Kankri first, just to make sure he did or didn't say anything to your father, mentally prepare, but you also don't want to spark the idea in him if he hasn't yet.

 

Dave asks you to call him later, and you agree, even if you aren't exactly sure how you're going to be. When you get home, Kankri's car isn't in the garage, but your dad's is. That doesn't mean you're safe, necessarily. You stay in your old Acura in the garage for a minute, log back into the TEAMADORABLOODTHIRSTY memo and tell your friends you're home.

 

CTA: good cau2e me and nep are payiing you a vii2iit

CTA: hou2e call

CCG: NOW?

CAC: :33 < yep!

CAC: :33 < we should be there in thirty minutes

 

The last time Nepeta randomly came to pick you up, it was because she and Equius had bad news for you. What is this about? Why is Sollux coming? Oh well. At least you have another reason to delay going inside.

 

You wait outside in the hull of your cul-de-sac for them, and while you're waiting, Kankri gets home. He stares at you from yards away as he enters the house. You suddenly feel nauseous.

 

Nepeta and Sollux arrive in Nepeta's car, park in front of one of your neighbor's houses. They get out and Nepeta hugs you, and Sollux just watches you do it, hands shoved into his pockets. He looks annoyed.

 

"So," Nepeta says, getting right to business, "we just wanted to - well, when we saw that you were with that Dave guy, some things sort of made sense for us, me, TA and CT. Even before all this stuff started happening to us today, we have been able to tell that you've been distracted, that maybe you're - changing, and - lying to us about having a boyfriend?"

 

"Okay, first of all, Dave isn't my boyfriend." Sollux rolls his eyes at that, and really? "Second, I have been distracted, but that's because of all the drama going on at school right now, which I'm sure you two have your fair share of, because it's high school, and high school sucks."

 

"You didn't anthwer Nep'th quethtion," Sollux says. "Why did you lie to uth for tho long about Dave?"

 

"I didn't lie about anything," you say.

 

"A lie by omithion ith thtill a lie."

 

"Why do you even  _care?_ Okay, yes, he and I have been fooling around, but it's not a big deal. He's just this guy I know at school who's kind of been in my circle for a while now and it was a long time coming, honestly."

 

"You used to say that Dave was really mean to you," Nepeta says. "You haven't talked about him like that in a long while - now you kinda just don't talk about him at all - but I remember! Though I will say, he is really hot. Still, that's not an excuse."

 

"So what, he was kind of a dick before, but he isn't now. Sollux over here is a dick all the time, and we're still friends."

 

"Yeah, but I'm not  _giving_ you dick. It'th different."

 

"How sway?"

 

"Becauthe thith dude went out of hith way to troll you that night, and whatever beef you had at the time wath clearly fucking with you a lot. I don't think I've ever theen you that thtrethed out and hurt over what wath arguably a bunch of lame prank callth at it'th core; obviouthly, it wath a lot more than that. We were thitting fucking cool and quiet before thith guy methed with our thow, and now we're dealing with thome prick who'th thending uth malware and bathically bricking your phoneth. You're jutht gonna let Dave get away with that?"

 

"We're just a little worried, that's all," Nepeta says. "We want you to be happy."

 

"I  _am_ happy." But are you? "I mean - there's a lot of shit going on at home right now, I'm standing out here talking to you because I don't want you coming inside and seeing the ice box of tension and generational machismo and whiny sickle in my side that is my half brother and the hole my mom left when she disappeared. But when I'm with Dave, alone? It's like all of that goes away. For a little while. It does. He makes me laugh, he makes me - "

 

Nepeta's phone rings in her jacket pocket, and she takes it. "My mom," she explains, stepping away for a moment.

 

“I'm jutht thaying, I thpent my entire day today trying to figure out thith viruth, becauthe I care about you, come to find out you're thitting pretty around the houthe of the guy who triggered the guy who thent it, who doethn't even _care_ and probably doethn't even know about it, doeth he? It’th not my fault you’re in love with your oppreththor.”

 

“My what?”

 

“Oppreththor.”

 

“Come again?”

 

“You know what, KK, fuck you, I—”

 

“Relax, numbnuts.” You scratch your head, sleepy. “Are you saying you wouldn’t think Dave was a dickhead if he wasn’t white?”

 

“I’m thaying, dickhead, that he’th obviouthly the kind of guy who only doeth thit for the vine, he’th taking advantage of your virgin ath and you’re too obthethed with getting attention to thee it.”

 

“Bite me.”

 

“Tho mature.”

 

“You don’t know anything about this kind of thing, okay, Sollux? It’s really ironic that you work for a website about romance when _you_ don’t ever leave your computer long enough for anyone to touch you. I’m not a virgin. You are.”

 

He doesn’t say anything.

 

Maybe you really are changing.

 

“Okay, Thinderella. I’m going to give you thome time to thort through your thit.”

 

"Wait, I - "

 

"No. I'm done right now."

 

Sollux passes Nepeta on his way back to her car, and you hear him tell her "let'th go," sinking in your heart when she follows, still on the phone, gets in and drives away.

 

When you get inside the house, Kankri and your father are sitting at the dining room table together. They were talking, you think, but stopped when you entered. Kankri is biting his nails and looking at you and your father is drinking coffee, not looking at you. This hurts you too much to deal with right now, so you go upstairs and lock your door. As you're fighting the urge to cry, unpacking your bag from the day, your iThrone finally buzzes in your pocket with a message from "uu:"

 

 **uu:** DID YOu. ENJOY PHASE ONE?

 **uu:** KARKAT OLIVER VANTAS?

 **uu:** AGE 16. JuNE 21 2001. SOCIAL SECuRITY. 61A-777-090B. 157 CM. 53 KG. TYPE O BLOOD. 

 **uu:** BORN TO. HECTOR VANTAS. VICTORIA OCAMPO. uPLAND VALLEY HOSPITAL. 1205 AM.

 **uu:** HEART MuRMuRS. AS AN INFANT. CLINICALLY DEPRESSED. AS AN ADOLESCENT.

 **uu:** PRESCRIBED ZOLOFT. 100 MG. SAW DR ZIPHON. LAST ON AuGuST 8 2017. 

 **uu** attached file HEREYOuARE.png

 

The file is a desktop screenshot containing your home address. Entered into a search bar, zip code and everything, pulled up on a live map.

 

 **uu:** I OWN YOu.

 

"Shit, fucking shit."

 

You take a screenshot of the messages to send them to Sollux, and then remember that Sollux is rightly pissed at you right now. You think this guy upping the ante like this would qualify as reason enough to beg for forgiveness and help, but you can't. You were a total axe wound and you can't. At least not right this second.  

 

 **KARKAT:** WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT DID I DO TO YOU?

 **uu:** NOTHING.

 

Smoking to calm your panic is an extremely high risk, given that your dad or Kankri could come up knocking at your door at any moment, given that it could just make your paranoia worse, but something's gotta give. You lock yourself in your bathroom, turn the shower water on HOT, let the room fill up with steam. Sit on the floor amongst your dirty laundry and light up several bowls. So many that you forget what's going on outside this room, almost forget yourself entirely. Pretty soon, you knock out. Stir back to life two hours later on a pile of dirty underwear with the hot water still running, clean of smoke. You get into the shower spray, still feeling pretty lightheaded, wash yourself briefly, and then get out.

 

Nothing in your room looks out of sorts at all. You check outside your bedroom window, see your neighborhood looking the same and don't see any strange cars or anyone watching your house. You go to check your phone, picking it up like it's a time bomb, and see that you have zero notifications, messages, or missed calls. If anyone in your family was trying to knock on your door earlier, you didn't hear them, and it wasn't urgent enough that they felt the need to call you or leave you a note.

 

It's past nine o'clock, and if you were going to have a Quadrant show tonight, like you'd flimsily promised the forum you still would, now would be the time to prepare. You have no idea what you could manage to talk to them about right now. What to do when your friends don't approve of your secret boyfriend? What to do when someone's stalking you? If your friends haven't hit you up in the last hour or two, that means they aren't interested in doing an episode tonight either. You don't really blame them, what you said to Sollux notwithstanding. Today was probably exhausting for all of you.

 

You stare at the USB microphone on your desk, wonder if N-S-E want out of The Quadrant for good now. If this can be something you're really able to keep up yourself. Granted anyone still wants to listen after Sollux's analysis is done, and you have to man up and message people on whether or not you just infected them. With even just a fraction of your audience, it wouldn't be ideal, but you can log into the live streaming services yourself. If anything goes down with the site, if "uu" is really intent on ending your virtual life, well, you’re screwed. But it’s not over. It can’t be.

 

Your stomach grumbles loudly, and you have the munchies enough that you figure you could probably keep down whatever you try to imbibe. You throw on an old black sweatshirt that says BITCH in bold white letters - gift from Rose two Christmases past, let your dad say "language" to you today, it's not the worst thing he could do - and a pair of gray sweatpants before you saunter downstairs to the kitchen. Your father is in the adjacent family room, sitting in his chair, watching his old television. He doesn't look at you at all as you putter around, so he wasn't talking to Kankri about what you think he was. Or was he? Is he just waiting to levy the blow? Cruel, random timing, like "uu"?

 

You steal a block of cheese and a couple tortillas out of the fridge, too lazy to heat them up, and pause for a moment in the kitchen. Say to your dad, "Hey," cautionary, wondering if that'll stir the pot. This makes him glance over, nod at you, but nothing else. 

 

You can't keep wondering what they talked about though, so you stop at Kankri's room before heading back upstairs, just to rule it out. It takes him almost too long for you to wait before he answers your knocks, peering out at you like you're armed and dangerous.

 

"What?" he says to you.

 

"What were you and Dad talking about earlier?"

 

"...Nothing."

 

You don't like the way he's looking at you right now. "You sure about that?"

 

"Did you just smoke or something? Stop being paranoid. Really, it was nothing."

 

"Okay, I'm not being paranoid because I may or may not have had any drugs, I'm being paranoid because you've been 'will I won't I'-ing me all day about the worst possible thing that you could 'will I won't I' about."

 

"Go away."

 

He starts to close the door but you catch it in one hand, balancing your plate on the other. "No."

 

"Leave me alone."

 

"Not until you tell me what you were talking about."

 

He presses the door so hard that it jams your fingers and you jump, losing your plate face down on the carpet.

 

"You made me drop my tortillas!"

 

He swings the door open then, stoops down to pick up said tortillas, and starts throwing them at you.

 

"Why are you like this?" you groan.

 

"I told you to leave me alone."

 

As he's about to throw the last tortilla, you reach in and pin his arm to the wall just outside the door, pin the other for good measure when he tries to reach it at you in his struggle. He trembles through his resistance, you're stronger than him; he tries to headbutt you but you duck, kneeing him in the stomach hard enough for him to keel, though not enough for him to not be able to tackle to you to the floor. You struggle, elbows and claws, but then you start winning again, rolling on top of him, knee to his chest, him out of breath.

 

You're about to say something smart, when he starts crying.

 

"Are you - "

 

"Will you just get off me, please?"

 

You release him, and he runs back into his room and slams his door. You wish you could take it back, everything, your threats about he and Cronus, the fact that you've hated each other since you met. You're the same, save two years. Can you really hate yourself so much?

 

Not bothering with wanting to eat anymore, you pick the food up off the ground, take it to the kitchen trash, and wander back upstairs. You're starting to come down from your high now, so staring out of your window every minute is becoming all that you can do. What if "uu" blasts your info on some seedy backweb recesses? It's not just you who's in danger then, it's Kankri and your father and his mother. You're not going to be able to sleep like this.

 

You re-read the messages, your throat closing up, mind cycling on what else he knows. If he knows everything. If maybe he can see you reading his texts right now. This is scary fucking shit. You have to tell Nepeta and Equius about this at least, so you go to get your laptop from your bed, bringing it back to your desk.

 

When you turn it on, you find a cryptic neon green screen waiting for you: HAILLORDENGLISH has gotten into your system, replacing your startup process with a jarring log-in that has a black "password" field and flashing pool balls everywhere. "uu" texts you once again:

 

 **uu:** IF YOu. WANT YOUR COMPuTER BACK.

 **uu:** YOu WILL JuST. HAVE TO WAIT.

 **uu:** FOR WHAT? THAT IS.

 **uu:** MY DECISION. ALONE.

 **uu:** YOuR FRIENDS. THE CAT. THE LISPING FuCK. THE ONE WHO LOVES HORSE COCK.

 **uu:** THEY ARE ALL. LOCKED OuT OF THEIR SYSTEMS.

 **uu:** IF YOu. PuRCHASE ANOTHER LAPTOP. I WILL KNOW.

 **uu:** IF YOu. REMOVE MY MALWARE. I WILL KNOW.

 **uu:** PHASE THREE. BEGINS WHENEVER I FEEL LIKE IT.

 **uu:** MAYBE. I’LL GO TO THE STORE FIRST. WANDER ABOuT. SMELL THE ROSES.

 **uu:** I COuLD. WAIT A DAY. OR A FEW WEEKS.

 **uu:** NEVERTHELESS. YOuR SHIT IS WRECKED.

 

You call Nepeta, frantic.

 

“You seeing this too?”

 

_“Yes, Equius is here, his looks the same!"_

 

“Nep I don’t know if Sollux told you what I said to him when you guys left, but we _really_ need to leave that shit behind us for a minute here. This guy somehow has all this data on me, apparently he's been on me long enough that he was able to do this shit to  _all of us,_ but is he texting you too? This can’t actually be - why would he send us a virus and why would he bother fucking with four random kids from Ensena?”

  
_"Wait,"_ Equius says behind Nepeta, on speaker, _"you said that he has data on you?"_

 

You text Nepeta and Equius both the screenshot. "Sent that to me a few hours ago."

 

 _"Shit,"_ Nepeta says. You hear her dialing. That must be Sollux.  _"TA, are you - "_

 

_"Yep."_

 

 _"It gets worse,"_ Equius tells him. _"He doxxed Karkat."_

 

 _"For god'th_ thake. _KK thend me what he thaid to you."_ You do.

 

_“Okay, trutht me, he’th not going to know if I reverthe engineer thith trath. For thome reathon he’th bent on harrathing KK and I haven’t heard thit from thith guy at all until now, he hath no idea what I’m working with, that wathn’t even any of my Kali Linuth machineth. I’ll call you guyth back when I’m done with thith wathe of time.”_

 

You stay on the line with Nepeta for another minute, trying not to hyperventilate, listening to her tell you not to worry, that they'll keep you safe. A few minutes into that, Dave calls. Shit, you forgot that you said you would call him. You click over.

 

“ _What’s up, gorgeous.”_

 

“This is not a good time.”

 

“ _...Oh. What’s going on.”_

 

“Some whack job who's been following The Quadrant since it blew up just sent us ransomware and locked us of our laptops."

 

“ _Shit. Is it bad? Like your computer is done for bad?”_

 

“I don’t know if there’s anything I can do right this minute. He says if I try to look into what he did, he’ll ‘know,’ and he has my address. He sent me a screenshot of it. It could just be some dumb amateur script kiddie pissing around and trying to scare me without any follow through. I mean, he could be the second coming and I could be in actual danger, but you can find anyone’s address on LixusNixus and bypass the payment system if you’ve got half a brain and some SQL knowledge. Sollux can do it, and he’s not fucking Neo. But this guy found a way to get my _medical records_ and social security and I don’t - I can't sleep knowing this guy has information on me like this.”

 

“ _I_ _’m not too privy with the hacking so I don’t really know what you should do either. My Bro and Dirk could – well, they’d take it too far.”_

 

You don’t want to think about whatever that means. Seriously, you’re starting to think that Dave’s Bro and/or Dirk might’ve killed someone.

 

“I’m just – tired, Dave. Really fucking tired, today. I got into this stupid fight with Sollux earlier, Kankri's been taunting me all day, I just _fought him_ in the hallway and he  _cried,_ and I trust Sollux to make sure that we’re actually good, but what if we aren't? What if someone shows up to my house? I can't, I can't do this."

 

“ _Look, maybe the best thing isn’t a distraction, but if there’s nothing you can do right this minute about it all, maybe you could use a distraction. Let your friend Skrillex do his thing, look into the guy, figure how this all happened. Take a bubble bath, definitely turn your phone off, soon as you hang up with me. You got a flip phone?”_

 

“Yeah, I’ve got like six of my old Motorola T9 bricks from second grade dust-bathing in my desk drawer.”

 

“ _Hop on one of those for a minute, and file a police report. You know I ain’t down with the five-o like that, but if some stranger’s tauntin’ you with your social and address, that sounds like somethin’ you should get ‘em involved in. Just to be on the safe side. Maybe this guy’s got nothing really. Maybe he lives in fucking Alaska and is just some loser sixteen year old who doesn’t like your show or whatever. Maybe it was just one laptop virus and now that you’re owned he’ll get bored and move on. Still, your peace of mind, that’s the important thing. You gotta get some sleep tonight.”_

 

You take a deep breath, holding the phone, your lifeline to your distraction, closer to your face.

 

"I'd sleep better if I was with you right now."

 

_"Are you sure that's what you want? Of course I wanna do anything I can."_

 

"Yeah. It is." You close your eyes. "Come get me."

 

_"I'm on my way. Call the cops first."_

 

"I will."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Nine is done, just need to finish up Ten. Lmk your thoughts!


	9. Chapter 9

 

 _Candy red things gonna spin_    
_With that big body boy_    
_You’re bound to win_    
_With that armor in your mouth_    
_You’re gonna shine_    
_Your wrists talking boy_    
_It’s only time_    
_Put the incense on_    
_Cover up the smell_    
_And if your boys go down I know you’ll never tell_    
_You’re a superstar_

 _-_ Solange, "[Scales](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PuEMSf-kLc)"

 

 

♋️

 

 

The police don't seem to take much interest in your report, but you can't tell if their dismissal of your concerns is a good sign, or just them being lazy. Still, an officer shows up to your front door around thirty minutes after you call, and your father, stepmother, and Kankri are in the living room hesitantly listening to you explain the messages you received, the officer's advice. Your stepmother tries to clarify with you - "What is it that happened? Someone hacked our internet? Why?" - and you explain, in shame, that the radio show you've been working on for the last year has, yes, put you in the line of fire from some kind of hacker. Kankri doesn't say a scathing word to you about this, much to your surprise, only eyes the gun on the officer’s holster the entire time the man stands in your doorway.

 

The officer says that what is occurring falls legally under cyberstalking and harassment, but because you aren't aware of the perp's identity, there is not much you can do by way of civil or criminal suit. "If you can afford a good lawyer or PI," he says, and your family can't, "they can help you get a location on this guy, maybe set some kinda honeypot on the device he's contacting you on. Unfortunately, since there have been no actual threats or any physical contact, there's nothing we can do, 'cept a neighborhood ride around time to time, make sure you're safe." Your father is frustrated with this all, but he thanks the police for offering a nightly check-up on his home, anyway.

 

Dave arrives at your house just as the officer is going; he idles two yards down, texting you on the ancient Motorola RAZR you've just resuscitated that he's here. Your family has scattered back into their respective quarters, so you walk right out the front door and don't look back. It makes you anxious as fuck to leave your them alone, but not as much as it would to stay in the house a sitting duck. You texted Sollux, Nepeta and Equius to keep you updated via SMS on the malware/sketchy fuckshit that is tracking down "uu;" Sollux is the closet thing to a PI that you've got. You aren't sure that you should leave right now, or ever again until this guy lets up on you. But something's gotta give.

 

Dave looks fine as hell when you open the passenger door and slide in next to him; wearing his Spectacles in the dark, he dons a crisp white blazer, red dress shirt, black bowtie, and sleek, white skinny jeans. His distinctive scent is overwhelming to your senses. You wish you could strip him on sight. You almost say this.

 

"Wow, I feel underdressed," you comment instead, re: your BITCH pullover and sweats.

 

"Oh, I was gettin' ready to go to this thing, before I called you," Dave says, clicking on the handle of his shades, pausing whatever he was watching. "But I won’t go anymore, if you just wanna chill."

 

"What was the thing?"

 

"My Bro's in town for the night, he's doin' a set in downtown Los Angeles at some billionaire's charity mixer in a Ferrari dealership. Nbd."

 

"Oh. Did you still wanna go?"

 

"A little? I ain't seen my Bro do his music thing in a while. 's not like he'd probably actually even acknowledge me there tonight, even if he sent me tickets to this thing, and I quote, 'hopes I can bring a special friend to impress.' But I'd rather just hang with you at the crib honestly. Help you relax. I just wanted to get here quick, didn't feel changin' clothes."

 

You aren't opposed to him wearing what he's wearing, not at all. No matter the circumstances. You just want to get it off of him.

 

"Okay. Well, thanks. Now drive. Carry me over the threshold." 

 

He actually does literally carry you inside; usually you hate it when he does this, but right now, you're exhausted, and need the support. He lets you down when you've reached his master bedroom; the balcony doors are wide open, letting in a cool breeze, and it startles you - anyone could be looking inside, though he has virtually no neighbors, surrounded only by the vast expanse of his own backyard, and if your smart phone was acting as some kind of tracker for "uu," it's at your house at the bottom of your desk drawer. But still.

 

"Shit, sorry," Dave says, instantly noticing your anxiety re: the open portal. He shuts the doors, locks them with a gold key, and draws the curtains. "Just you and me."

 

You take a seat on Dave's giant bed as he messes with his stereo via remote, playing a light mix of original house music he made last year that you actually like - he's really talented, you're past admitting that. Though the music makes you feel good, you stare at your phone in frustration as new SMS from Sollux start to roll in. He's already swapped to a new device and phone number, and Nepeta and Equius are following suit as you speak.

 

 **SOLLUX:** 2o ii got an IIP addre22 for the location he 2ent thii2 2hiit from from the biinary fiile but of cour2e iit wa2 2poofed wiith Tor 2o iit2 ba2iically leadiing me two fuckall 

 **SOLLUX:** the only way two track hiim down at thii2 poiint would be two iidentify the 2iignature2 he u2ed iin thii2 but ii cant fiind anyone on any forum2 who have 2tudiied anythiing he2 done iin detaiil

 **SOLLUX:** at lea2t not yet 

 **SOLLUX:** what diid the cop2 2ay

 **KARKAT:** SINCE HE HASN'T TECHNICALLY THREATENED ME, THEY'RE NOT THE FBI AND I'M NO ONE OF IMPORTANCE, THEY'RE NOT GONNA WASTE THEIR TIME TRYING TO FIND OUT WHERE HE IS.

 **KARKAT:** HOLY SHIT T9 IS AWFUL WHY DID HUMANS EVER STOP AND ACCEPT THIS MEDIOCRE STAGE IN OUR ADVANCEMENT

 **KARKAT:** ANYWAY YEAH, UNTIL OR UNLESS HE OR SOMEONE SHOWS UP IRL, THEY CAN'T HELP ME.

 **SOLLUX:** that2 bull2hiit but not 2urpri2iing giiven the apathy of piig2 under donald fuck2 diicktator2hip 

 **SOLLUX:** ii have a cu2tom alert 2y2tem 2et up on ba2ically every 2earch engiine known two man two catch if he po2t2 any of the 2hiit he ha2 on you anywhere

 **SOLLUX:** kiind of all ii can do riight now

 **SOLLUX:** al2o ii cant get thii2 ran2omware off of my box or any of your2 unle22 ii nuke them entiirely

 **SOLLUX:** 2o iif you want me two come piick your2 up and wiipe iit a2ap ju2t let me know

 **KARKAT:** DON'T. PLEASE.

 **KARKAT:** HE SAID THAT IF WE REMOVE THE MALWARE, HE'LL KNOW, AND I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'VE NOTICED, BUT HE KNOWS A LOT OF SHIT.

 **KARKAT:** DON'T WIPE IT FROM YOURS, NEPETA'S OR EQUIUS'S COMPUTERS. JUST DON'T, OKAY? 

 **SOLLUX:** the longer iit run2 on ANY of our 2hiit the more we run the rii2k of hiim gettiing even more iinformation on you and po22iibly u2 and whatever thii2 and the app are connected two fuckiing raiining down on u2 like armageddon

 **KARKAT:** I'M SERIOUS. DON'T FUCK WITH HIM.

 **KARKAT:** I'M SCARED.

 **SOLLUX:** okay

 **KARKAT:** AND I'M REALLY FUCKING SORRY FOR WHAT I SAID EARLIER.

 **KARKAT:** I DIDN'T MEAN IT. IT'S JUST BEEN A REALLY LONG DAY.

 **SOLLUX:** ii know

 **SOLLUX:** iim 2orry two

 

You put the phone down on the comforter, drag your hands across your face. There's nothing more you can do right now; only wait. You text Kankri and tell him to tell you if anyone shows up at your house. He says he will, doesn't ask where you are right now. You thank him.

 

"Any good news?" Dave asks you.

 

"No." You sigh, staring at him in that outfit again, your flush creeping down your neck. "I've just maybe royally fucked myself and half the people I care about for reasons I don't even understand."

 

Dave pauses, pushing his shades off his eyes and into his bangs. "I'm really sorry about all this. Seriously. I can't help but feel like - your friend was right. If I hadn't posted that parody of your show that night and called, this guy might've never found you."

 

You shake your head. "Nothing like this has ever happened to you, and you don't know this person, do you?"

 

"Nope. Trust me, if I did, he'd probably be dead right now."

 

Your heartbeat skips protectively at that. "God, you look so amazing."

 

Dave smiles, bright and beautiful for you. "Oh, what, these old things? I got this blazer for junior prom last year, custom tailored, courtesy of Bro, my name's engraved in the tags, cufflinks are fourteen karat fuckin' gold, I actually dropped one of 'em that night 'cause I got too drunk and I made Egbert crawl around on the floor try'na find it 'cause I thought Bro would be pissed, turned out, he wasn't actually coming home for the next month, so he didn't know, and I just stole one from one of the blazers he left here that he never wears, so they're actually mismatched, look close you can see it, not too close, don't spoil the illusion of grandeur and fuckin' cool guy who's so on top of his shit he wears  _cufflinks_  deadass, how baller is that?"

 

“Shut  _up._  You're the worst at taking compliments, did you know that? I could put a muzzle over that trap.”

 

“You promise?”

 

You stand up, cross the room to take him, make him yours. Spend the next hour taking your time getting rid of his clothes; your hands relish every inch of skin you reveal, slowly pulling the bowtie from around his neck and tying his hands to his headboard with it. Eventually, your domineering starts to crumble, and you melt, weak and kissing him soft. Your clothes shed, you prepare him for what you are sure will be the ride of both of your lives, given your emotional state. 

 

"Fuck.” Dave reaches a hand around the side of the bed and fumbles with an empty box. "No more condoms." Wasn’t that box full before? Have you really been going at it that much? “We don’t have to do this, then.”

 

But bravery takes hold, and you think about all the time you've spent with him, how much he's really gotten under your skin and inside your heart, how _dedicated,_ why this matters. You’re both from bad and broken homes, just trying to love.

 

“I want you to," you say. "Without them.”

 

The shine of emotion in his eyes, his breathlessness.

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.”

 

When you're done, you're having a little trouble standing. That was to be expected. Still, you redress yourself completely, neverminding that Dave stays nude as he roams about the room, he always does. He changes the music to some acid jazz, that he also made, and you watch him nod his head - he really does want to go see his Brother (Dad? You still aren't really sure) play that set tonight, you can tell. It's obvious that he looks up the guy so much, even if _you_ aren't sure you appreciate how often he's willing to leave his offspring alone to fend for himself. That's gotta be negligence, like, legally, right? And it hasn't come back yet, the sinking dread of the dark reality that you'll face the second you leave Dave's house, deal with it along with the rising sun - no messages from Sollux, Nepeta and Equius as of now - and you'd still like to keep it off, ride this other wave as long as you can. 

 

"Let's go to that thing tonight," you say. "If it's not too late."

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Yeah."

 

Dave picks his dress clothes off the floor, folding them and placing them in a lumpy pile on his desk. There's a lot of clutter on the desk in fact, most of which you can't make out as you still sit on his bed, but you think you see - no, that little bag of white could be anything, protein powder? Who knows what this guy gets up to - and anyway, he's only searching for his iThrone now, dialing someone and coming to sit on the bed next to you.

 

 _"What's up?"_ you hear John Egbert answer on the other line.

 

"Yeah I'm just callin' to let you know that you've been cordially uninvited from tonight's festivities, a.k.a. Bro's thing."

 

_"What? Why?"_

 

"Bringin' Karkat along instead." He stares at you as he says it, playing with one of your hands. "After the day we've both had, we could use a little alone time."

 

_"Lame! Whatever."_

 

"See what Terezi's up to tonight, since you and her are such butt buddies lately."

 

_"Maybe I will!"_

 

"Love you baby, please don't be mad."

 

_"Ugh, I hate it when you call me that."_

 

"And that's why I do it. Peace."

 

When he hangs up, and rises once more, you realize that if he's going to change back into his celebrity style clothes, there's no way you can be seen with him dressed how you're currently dressed; your black Nikes are pretty new, but sweatpants to this affair is something you think might get you lynched.

 

" _Can_ I go to this event?" you ask him, pointing at the BITCH on your chest to drive it home. "I'm assuming there's some kind of dress code, and  _don't_ offer me any of your clothes. Not only would they not fit, but I'd feel pathetic."

 

"The thing about rich people is," Dave says, "you can pretty much wear whatever you want to anything that’s full of other rich people and nobody can really call you on it. I mean, have you _seen_ how Elon Musk dresses? He could show up to the goddamn inaugural ball on Mars when Donald Drumpf gets re-elected for the nth time ‘cause democracy is dead in this country, in a wife beater, Crocs and a Rolex and nobody in the hypergravity chamber would say shit to him. He’s Elon Musk, he makes millions in the time it takes for him to pass a casual dump and tweet about how much he loves being on Ambien, you think he or the people loaded enough to be in rooms with him care if he looks like a homeless stoner? Certainly not enough to say it to his face and offend his money or the share of SpaceZ they're kissin' his ass to get. This is not Elon praise, by the way, no one who’s that into hentai and public about it has earned my respect - my point is, look.”

 

He goes into his giant closet, pulls out a navy blue sweatshirt that says, monogrammed, "wolfgang amadeus mozart has been dead for 226 slutty, slutty years." He yanks it on over his head, slinks into some black sweatpants, throws on a silver watch, and puts on a pair of Gucci slippers.

 

"Trust me, there’ll be people in flip flops and Hawaiian shirts as well as suits and ties. No real dress code. My Bro basically wears the same thing every gig like a cartoon character. White polo, black slacks, shades. No one who matters cares because he’s damn good at what he does."

 

You almost say it out loud - _I love you_ \- for his ridiculous show of solidarity towards your outfit.

 

“What are we damn good at, then?” you say instead, checking your phone briefly - still nothing, Sollux really needs to let you know _something_ to put you at peace - “Who are we to walk into this thing like this, two jackass kids with mildly popular internet shows?”

 

“Doesn’t matter.” Dave digs around again in the contents of his desk top. “We have tickets, you’re my date. I’m basically the entertainment’s reason for existing. Plus,” he looks over at you, smirking, voice low, “we’re hot together.”

 

You bite your lip at his tone, try to keep it in your pants.

 

“If you say so.“

 

You see his hands pull the tickets out from under a pile, and yeah, that little bag of white is very likely cocaine. You walk over to the desk, poke at it, and he watches you do it, nervous.

 

“What is that?” you prompt.

 

“Party favors. I was only gonna do it if John was coming. I know that’s not your thing. And really, we really don’t have to go.”

 

But you need to be out of your head right now, or you’ll go insane -

 

“I'll try it.”

 

“Really? You sure?”

 

“It’s not gonna kill me or give me seizures or anything, will it?” Though dying tonight wouldn’t be the worst possible thing you could imagine -

 

“Nah, blow's a lot less crazy than people think. 's not like meth or heroin and it ain't gonna make you hallucinate. Doesn't last too long, mostly makes you numb to your emotions and lets you focus on just one thing and gives you this orgasmic body rush - " those are all things that you want right now - "not to sell it too hard, I don't do it as often as people think I do 'cause that shit'll stop your heart if you get addicted, the comedown can suck and you can't really sleep right after you do it. It's awesome for a night or two, though. You can start with a l'il bump, see how you feel - but I don’t want you doing this because - "

 

“It has nothing to do with anything, okay?” You kiss him for good measure, slow and sweet, the way you know defeats him. His knees practically buckle.

 

“I’m just trying to see how the one percent lives,” you say, ghosting his lips. “Can you handle that?”

 

“I’m so not the one percent.”

 

“You are to me.”

 

He returns to his closet for a second, returns with a pair of diamond stud earrings - you pierced your ears during your scene phase - and sets them into your lobes. They feel cold against your skin, and you look at yourself in his floor length mirror; they're VS2, round cut, 2 karats each, he says to you, and you can keep them for a while. You aren't sure you'll take him up on this, but it dresses up your "rebellious rich" look just enough. You are his.

 

 

♋️

 

 

He takes you there, speeding ninety on the highway, and the rush of the car and the billowing wind and the height of your high makes you forget about all of your nightmares. All there is is Dave and the road, the Los Angeles cityscape, and at one point you scream in laughter out the window, letting all your sour energy fly.

 

[An electric song with 80s style synth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8cHW8ZBnZY) is booming when you enter the dealership; the dark blue lights are low, complimented by pink and red strobes, and Dave was right about the mixture of people in here. They're mostly white, but you expected that, dressed in everything from cocktail attire to not much else but bathing suits and sandals, and the range of ages is more than you expected too. There are two fully stocked bars, but you weren't expecting that your tickets would grant you entry to that - it's not like you need alcohol, what with the coke you've already taken making you feel euphoric enough. The dance floor is waving and moving, and at the front of it, you can just barely make out the serious figure of Dave's Bro, obscured in fog, working behind a booth. 

 

The nature of the charity that the event is for is completely unclear to you - there is a silent auction happening against one of the walls, fancy bidders dropping thousands, half on prizes, half to the charity - but you aren't here for all of that. It's crazy to see the cars, the one or three that the Ferrari dealership has left out on display, which some people are taking photos with; suicide doors, gleaming exterior, the latest tech, you wonder how much they cost. How much Dave's Ferrari costs for that matter. You can't believe you're actually here, playing like you belong in this room. Fuck it. Tonight you  _do_ belong, you've decided, with him by your side.

 

Dave takes you out on the dance floor, and you've never been much for dancing, but your rapture is so strong that you don't even care. Dave holds you close to his body, Spectacles off as he kisses you, and it's impossibly relieving to be somewhere else, in Dave’s outside world tonight. It’ just the two of you here, no one else that you've ever known. You realize for the first time in a long time, quite possibly ever, that one day soon, the life you've always known won't be all there is. You can leave and escape everything.

 

You and Dave see his Bro up close for all of a minute. The man finds you two after his second break in his set, sneaks up behind you in silence like a ninja and is all of a sudden there, huge and strapping and buff and veiny biceps straining from the sleeves of his shirt and  _goddamn,_  you are so attracted to the Strider genes you think it might kill you.The elusive guardian doesn’t say anything to his progeny in greeting. His triangular glasses make it so you can’t see past the stone cold poker face, square jawed, that you just know is a permanent fixture.

 

Bro looks at you, or at least you thinks he does. Says only, to Dave, “This your boyfriend?”

 

“Kind of.”

 

Bro Strider offers his hand, then, broad and black leather gloved, for you to shake. It’s the briefest, strongest and tightest handshake - so hard your hand fucking _hurts_ \- that you've ever experienced, and it makes your stomach burn. Bro smiles, then, and disappears back into the crowd. Soon as he’s out of eye and ear sight, you find Dave laughing hysterically at your side, almost crying with it.

 

“Holy shit,” he manages, “he likes you.”

 

"Is that what that meant?"

 

You are so confused, very confused, but his laughter is contagious, and you can't help your heart.

 

"Oh, shit." Dave wipes his tears. "I might have to marry you now."

 

When you get back to his empty palace, Dave actually draws you a bubble bath; lights incense, burning on his bathroom counter, and you take one more line of coke each of you; it really doesn't feel like you thought it would, just better, the real adverse only the bitter taste of drip in the back in your mouth. It makes it so that his touch is the best thing you've ever felt in your life. Down on the floor, as Dave enters the soapy bathtub before you, you sit and check your phone one last time. Sollux texted you fifteen minutes ago: "nothiing yet on thii2 guy2 iidentiity or the 2iingature2, but he ha2nt po2ted anythiing about your iinformatiion. iill let you know iif anythiing change2. iim going two bed, but ii have an alarm 2et that 2hould wake me up iif he make2 any move2. get 2ome 2leep you mii2erable a22hole." Nepeta and Equius contacted you with their updated phone numbers, said good night, two hours ago.

 

And good night, it sorely is; you have no concept of the remaining hours that go on, as it was the first night the two of you found each other; your cocaine high serves to only allow you to focus on his body, on his love, until dawn turns the sky teal, where you rest in his bedroom with the curtains scarcely drawn. One moment of something like sleep washes over, briefly, as your head starts to hurt from the comedown; you lie in his arms in bed, passing out, him nodding off too, what affliction tomorrow may bring just on the horizon.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Ten is on the way. Its a long one and serves as this story's conclusion. Chapter Eleven is the epilogue. 
> 
> More as soon as I can. <3


	10. Chapter 10

 

   
_My feelings might go numb_  
_You're dealing with cold thumb_  
_I’m willing to give up a leg and arm_  
_And show empathy from_  
_Pity parties and functions and you and yours_  
_A perfect world, you probably live another 24_  
_I can’t fake humble just 'cause your ass is insecure_

– Kendrick Lamar, “[Pride](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmSyYEungx4)”

 

 

♋️

 

 

Dave's alarm goes off at 6:45 a.m. With less than two hours of sleep under your belt, you have school to attend this morning. Last night felt so out of place with the rest of your universe, it's hard to imagine going back to it. Alas, you're forced to. Dave barely stirs at the blaring sequence of rings, but you immediately slide from his grasp to slam your fist down on the black device so hard that it jumps and falls off the bedtable. Dave comes to fully at the sound of it crashing. Your head hurts. Granted, as you slide back into him, the imagery before you is soothing as all get out: morning sun pouring in past the curtains, Dave's freckled skin glowing, his hair sleep rough, smiling in golden light. He pulls you closer into his side and you rest your head on his chest.

 

There are things you need to attend to; the Motorola brick you've been passing as a cellphone sits on the bedtable, no blinking green light on the side of it telling you that you have any messages. You give yourself a couple more minutes, then, before having to face its reality. You stay in the bed with Dave, bored but content, watching him absently scroll through his Instagrub timeline on his phone, double clicking and red hearting a couple of harmless photos. He takes a pause on one in particular, though: it's one that John posted last night, a selfie of him and Terezi, and Terezi is licking the side of his face as is something she often does, sort of her trademark. Dave stares at it for a moment, finger hovering, then clicks his phone off. Were it not for the absence of his Spectacles, you'd barely notice the slight pinch of his brows.

 

"What?" you ask him.

 

"I just." He bounces the phone in his hand a little. "Honestly feel like there should be some kinda bro code 'tween me and him about her. Like obviously I was just joking that he should hit up Terezi when I blew him off. But, yeah. Whatever."

 

"Do you really think that you're in any position to call 'bro code' right now? Given the fact that you're here with me right this second in a rather compromising position, doesn't that violate whatever 'bro code' you may've had with her?"

 

Dave goes and rambles off his explanation, but honestly, you miss the first half of it; just mentioning that your position is compromising sends your brain to the hazy gutter - you could really use morning sex right now, one more hit of the drug - but you log back in when Dave starts saying that he and John have been "settling a score," remember you did hear him say that "their thing" has always been this sort of game they play. Or mostly that Dave plays, waiting for John to catch up. That Dave and John have always been a package deal and twisted loyal to each other first, "at least until now," even when they "took a break from hooking up sophomore year" and "started sleeping with our friends for sport" -

 

But that means nothing because right now _you love him so much_  and Dave is just... wait, what? What did he just say about John?

 

“I'm sorry." You squeeze your eyes shut. The bad taste of drip in the back of your mouth multiplies what he just said, flooding your brain, too much imagery. "Hooking up? You and him have _slept together?”_

 

“Yeah, we have.”

 

You sit up from him abruptly. He's not looking at you, arms above his head, best impression of his guardian's removed poker face. His red eyes betray him, though. This is not something you ever imagined could be occurring between he and his best friend,  _John is so straight,_ and oh, fuck, has it still been going on? That day when they were here recording that YouTube live thing and you ignored it, all the times they've hung out in between you and him doing this thing and you've just  _watched them do it,_  plain and masquerading as "best bros" in front of your face _-_

 

“How many times?” Worse: “Was he ever your boyfriend?”

 

"Yeah this so doesn't have a label.”

 

“How long has it been happening?”

 

“I don’t know, since we were like ten?”

 

_“Ten?”_

 

“Nah ten is like you will never recover levels of young, what kind of feeble Oedipal deviant do you think I am?”

 

“I’d really appreciate it if you could drop the goddamn witticisms this once, Dave, just this fucking once, and just. Talk to me, seriously. Please.”

 

And here it is: this emotion he can’t keep away from you.

 

His voice falters. “John’s too close.” 

 

“What does that even _mean?”_

 

“There are certain relationships that just don’t need fixing.”

 

It all stems down to the Strider clanship, doesn’t it? The way his Bro left the children in his care alone to fend for themselves, raising each other on roughhousing. The way that Dirk and Jake grew up together, basically lived on top of each other, and that formed its way into the fated soulmate relationship that it's become. The way that Dave has done everything with John since they were six, two pairs, perhaps copying what they saw of the two older boys in their tribe. Dave's whole life in California is based on that familial foursome, he got fought and bruised up and laughed and loved with them for years before you. _John is Dave’s Jake._

 

And John was going to that event with him last night, before your personal disaster interrupted them. John had so clearly said that it was "lame" when Dave chose your company over his,  _and Dave said "love you, baby" before they got off the phone_ , and sure, it is very much your own damn fault that Dave is not your boyfriend proper, because you're so terrified of allowing that kind of permanence into your life. Technically, there have been no talks about faith or fidelity, while you've been blatantly ignoring him at school for the last month, ashamed to be with him,and still. Still, it hurts,  _it hurts._ You should've always known.

 

“So let me get this straight,” you say, tears stinging your eyes, “or whatever empirical, completely removed from context, metrosexual horse shit you’re going to want to call it. If we become what you consider romantic publicly I’m going to have to be potentially sandwiched between the whims of you and the dorkiest, hairiest straight-until-wet kid I’ve ever met in my life?”

 

“No, look. First of all, the hair wasn’t really that bad, kid gets a bad rap but I kinda got used to it after a couple swallows - ”

 

“Oh my God, I can’t do this with you.” You shake your head rapidly, and suddenly you’re letting it all spill in front of him before you can stop yourself; Dave’s eyebrows are drawn, his eyes showing his apparent heartbreak that you aren't taking this - he didn't even  _explain,_  what are you supposed to think?

 

“I can’t be the second choice, I can't be the trade. I’m not like this, I can only handle falling in love with one person at a time, and this is - you knew, you _knew_ that this was something you should've already told me about, that's why you're fucking so nonchalant and just _casually_  telling me there's always been this other guy and you love him - I can't, I'm ending this right the fuck now. I can't - ”

 

“Karkat, wait, please, I didn't  - ”

 

You abscond.

 

As you storm through the driveway, you see a black Lamborghini parked next to Dave's Ferrari; Bro Strider is standing in its open suicide door, key in hand, staring at you from behind his shades. You freeze for a moment, panicked - but he says nothing to you, and you can't read the look on his face, and he's about to be home at the same time as Dave in months. He watches you scurry past, and you swear, you can feel his gaze on your back all the way to your dirty Acura.

 

 

♋️

 

 

Driving home, you get a new message from Sollux:

 

ii dont know what he2 planniing two do but 2OMETHIING ii2 goiing on wiith thii2 crap he put he on our laptop2. call me

 

This is so not a thing you have time for, none of it is - fifty minutes 'til you have to be in class and you have to shower, get your shit together enough to not break into tears the moment you step on campus, and this is worse than you imagined. You knew that today was going to suck, but did it have to happen so fast? You can't breathe -

 

In the house, you rush through your routine, ignoring the phone temporarily. The diamond earrings Dave gave you are still in your ears, you realize as you glimpse your blurred reflection in the bathroom mirror; you tear them out, leaving them spinning on the counter.

 

Kankri warms a pastry in the microwave as you hurry past the kitchen, bookbag at your side, grab a cold untoasted bagel - you're not hungry at all, Dave said the coke would murk your appetite for at least twelve hours, but you're going to try and force yourself to eat so you don't pass out from the stress. Kankri watches you as you go, quiet and wondering, and you think it's the least offensive way he's looked at you in years. There's almost brotherly love in it. You don't have time for his change of heart, you don't have  _time -_

 

Sitting in the garage in your Acura, you finally dial Sollux up. He doesn't answer. "What the _fuck_ ," you say to his voicemail, "you can't just leave me with something like that and not pick up, call me back, you literal piece of human excrement." You try Nepeta, and hers goes to voicemail too, so you pull your laptop out of your bag and power it on, settling it on your knees against the steering wheel. Whatever is happening, it's not apparent to you; the green screen has a horrendous amount of white lines of code showering down it, row by row, executing something. It's moving so quickly that you can't read it, you don't even know what language it's in - Sollux returns your call.

 

"What is this, what's happening?"

 

 _"Phathe three, whatever the fuck that actually meanth. He thtill hathn't done anything with your information but thith could be releathing that and hell knowth what elthe who knowth where - thith payload ith fucking_ huge, _what the fuck - "_

 

"H-how do I get it off, how do I stop - "

 

_"Yeah you don't. I'm really thorry KK but even if I wiped it latht night it theemth like thith thit wath alwayth gonna blow."_

 

Suddenly, your computer screen goes black. Restarts, loading your original operating system as before. Your username "KK" and ordinary password field wait blinking. You press a few letter keys, see them respond as usual.

 

_"Karkat? You there?"_

"Yeah. My screen just changed. Everything's back to normal. Looks like it did before."

 

_"Don't touch anything."_

 

Kankri enters the garage, staring at you and your laptop in the driver's seat quizzically, but he says nothing as he gets into his own car, opens the garage door with a remote, and leaves you alone.

 

"Shit. I have to go to school."

 

 _"Me too."_  

 

"Don't be late on my behalf, just tell me - anything you can, anything about whatever he just sprung on us. Whenever you get a second."

 

_"I will."_

 

You can't drive yet. Even without all of this other shit raining down, today was already going to be rough. You aren't ready to walk into school, you aren't ready to see Dave and John, how dare he - you know you aren't technically his, even if you  _feel_ like - but how dare he convince your heart into letting go, and how dare you, last night, declare to yourself that you  _love him_ and now this - 

 

The mouse on your computer screen suddenly moves on its own accord. "uu," apparently, now has remote control. He enters your password correctly and navigates to your web browser. Types in thequadrant.com, lets you see what's changed: everything looks the same save for underneath the banner, where there is now a flashing black and white countdown. One minute and eighteen seconds remain. Your hands shake. You can't even call Sollux, too freaked.

 

"uu" opens Notepad, writes to you: 

 

THIS SHIT. HAS BEEN FuN.

THOuGH. I HAVE TO SAY. YOu MADE IT TOO EASY. 

NOT ONCE. DID YOu RETALIATE. OR RECIPROCATE MY ADVANCES.

KNOWING YOu. THAT SOuNDS ABOuT RIGHT.

 

"uu" exits Notepad as the counter reaches zero. You watch in horror as he maximizes your browser window, showing you the usual pop-up saying today's episode of The Quadrant is now live. It occurs to you that your webcam is uncovered, and on some _Black Mirror_ shit, you think maybe he's going to turn it on and stream it to the broadcast, blackmail you into doing something humiliating. But instead:

 

 _"Ladies, gentlemen and all in between,"_ your voice speaks,  _"welcome to the final broadcast of The Quadrant. The following is my suicide note._

 

_"I have wasted your time significantly enough with the pitiful tirade that is this show, and have decided that my quest for love and happiness is futile. Why, you may be asking? Aside from the fact that I'm wildly unsuccessful in all my endeavors, romantic and otherwise, I've never really understood what the point of being alive is. As you all know I don't believe in God anymore, so I know I'm not here for some meaningful spiritual purpose, and my waking hours are spent hating myself so thoroughly that it'd be nice to have some peace and fucking quiet for a change._

 

_"What is even the point of existence? If you ask me, it's stumbling from one embarrassing moment to the next and asking questions that have no answers to people who only care about themselves, until eventually you grow senile and die slowly. Why wait around for that? Don't bother trying to talk me out of it. This is something I've wanted for a long time and honestly the world will be better off without me. I'm nothing but a sadsack pretentious teenager who talked down to people on here to attempt to deflect my own unrelenting loneliness._

 

 _"To_ _everyone who ever tuned in to this massive trainwreck where I babbled on like I even knew what the fuck I was talking about, thank the giant void in the sky where my idea of God used to live that you're finally going to be rid of me._

 

_"And to everyone who thinks true love exists, I'm sorry, but it doesn't. I lied. I am the biggest fucking liar. It is me. Was me. Sincerely, Karkat Vantas, a.k.a. KK. Goodbye."_

 

The clock in your Acura is off, your laptop pushed to the passenger seat, so you aren't sure how long you sit there afterwards. Your ears are ringing. The morning sun pours in through the open garage door, and you stare at your empty cul-de-sac, convinced you're no longer part of it, that your numbness has trapped you in a bubble outside the actual plane of existence. That wasn't you who said it. You remember everything that happened the last twenty four hours, this last week, the whole school year. But does it matter? How many people have already heard it? It sounded just like you, mirrored the darkest thoughts you had.

 

 _This is something I've wanted for a long time. The world will be better off without me._  

 

Soon enough, you see Rose's silver car pull through your street and park across from your house. Kanaya gets out, running towards your garage, and  _oh shit,_ you've been so distracted that you haven't even told her you had to change your number last night, that someone went from random phone calls to life threatening impersonation. Rose is slowly following her.

 

Somehow, you find it in you to open your car door, stand up. Wait for Kanaya as she runs into the garage, mascara black tears all over her face, and runs into you, hugging you hard.

 

"Oh my god. I tried calling, but it said your phone was no longer in service. You can't, I can't do this if you aren't here. Please don't go."

 

You hold Kanaya back, still too numb to cry yourself. Mostly you're just _angry_  and heartbroken.You can't process.

 

"It wasn't me," you say to her.

 

Rose enters the garage then. She's not crying, but probably the closest thing you've seen to it.

 

Rose frowns. "What do you mean it wasn't - "

 

You suddenly let go of Kanaya, walking out into your empty driveway. You sit on the sidewalk in front of your mailbox, knees propped up against your chest, the sun too prickly hot on your face. Rose and Kanaya soon follow, standing in front of you in the street, but they don't say anything further. 

 

Nepeta, Sollux and Equius show up after a brief but indeterminate amount of time; they file out of Equius' truck, Sollux carrying one of his laptops in his arms. The three of them join Rose and Kanaya in a semi-circle around you. You can't look up into their faces. Still, they're right here. You're not alone.

 

"I'm really thorry to have to tell you thith," Sollux says, "but that fake broadcatht wath force played to pretty much everyone who'th ever vithited the Quadrant. Even jutht once. Mobile utherth too."

 

"How - " That's Kanaya, starting to regain herself. "How did it sound so much like him?"

 

"Vocal compilation, I'm athuming. AI program, memorized hith voithe from patht epithodeth and read a thome kind of thcript."

 

"I will kill him and dig up his corpse to kill him again," Nepeta says.

 

"And how did this person force so many people to listen to it?" asks Rose.

 

“Accethed all of the IP addretheth who hit our thite, planted a malithiouth browther cookie. I don't fucking know. The forumth are blowing the fuck up. The dethktop utherth are all reporting that they have a viruth. Haillordenglith on their backgroundth, thouthandth of thpam emailth, Notepad threatth with doxxeth of their thenthitive information. Mobile utherth aren't reporting any changeth, but whatever they have ith probably running dormant."

 

"He can't - " Equius clenches his fists so hard they rumble, you can see it in your peripherals. "He can't get away with this."

 

"We jutht didn’t prepare for thomething like thith, we couldn’t have.”

 

You finally lift your head to look at them. The five of them look so sympathetic, you can't even be ashamed of it anymore. This is who you are: the boy whose life is so unfortunate that the people who love you are constantly pained secondhand, and _you're probably never going to be able to exist online again, what the fuck,_ and part of you wants to tell your friends "stop looking at me like that!" and another part of wants to - you don't even know. Crumple up. Become a black hole.

 

"It's over now, right?" Your voice throbs. "This is the worst possible thing that could've happened, and it's done."

 

You aren't sure if that's true, or what you expected them to say in response. But when none of them say anything, the silence is so pregnant that your anger boils over, you let it go.

 

“The crime I committed was apparently trying to live out my lifelong dream of being a talk show host and innocently trying to help people with their love lives, and my punishment by some random asshole who gets off on others' humiliation is everyone thinking I'm so narcissistic I purposely blew up their computers with a virus before I offed myself. This is so fucking far fetched, I'm actually finding it hilarious! Karkat, you sad motherfucker, you've really outdone yourself! All you had to do to avoid this was  _not_ take the job offer that would boost your future career and college prospects, you blithering imbicile, how could you not predict that a year and a half later it would explode and shame both of your names and do the exact opposite of all those things? Now every time someone Googles me I'm sure this is exactly what they'll find - and none of this would’ve happened if it hadn’t been for that self absorbed best-friend-fucker Dave and his stupid prank call!”

 

It feels cathartic to say it. But you know this wasn’t Dave's intention. It's no one's fault, really. It just  _sucks._

 

"Okay." You stand up, theoretical mic drop, and your friends' faces are a mixture of dismay and proud of you. It's only then that your exhaustion finally catches up, the shock wears off, and just as you see three police cars pulling up at your house, you start crying on the spot.

 

Resolution: the police get involved because several Ensena and Valley residents called their local departments in deep concern about your strange suicidal broadcast. Students at both high schools - and Equius's state college as well - and their families' home networks were affected by the breach. The police were able to easily find you here at your address because the thing was signed  _Sincerely, Karkat Vantas,_ and you already filed a report that you were a victim of identity theft and hacking. Your parents will have to know about this of course, and so will Equius, Nepeta and Sollux’s; you aren’t responsible for the malware infecting thousands of people as they speak, but the Quadrant's domains, data and servers are all ground zero for this cataclysm.

 

You return to your Acura in the garage, as the police collect statements from your friends; the cops are also calling your father at his job fair and your stepmother at work right now, too. You get in your car to block it out for a moment. Close your laptop in the other seat, consider burning it, and glance at the Motorola phone on top of your bookbag. It's blinking green with a message. It could be "uu" again, but really, what else can do to you? Maybe it's Kankri; surely he heard it on his phone like Rose and Kanaya, or at least heard about it from other people. You open the phone's flip top, bracing yourself -

 

 **DAVE:** i know youre really fucking pissed about this morning and i deserve that but please let me know that youre okay

 

You've dried up emotionally by now. It's not your priority, and you don't know how you'll ever look at him at school - if you can even stand to go back, given your embarrassment - but you don't want to make him suffer thinking something happened to you. He doesn't deserve that. 

 

 **KARKAT:** THAT WASN'T ME. 

 **KARKAT:**  UNFORTUNATELY, I'M STILL HERE!

 **KARKAT:** THAT GUY WHO'S BEEN STALKING ME POSTED A FAKE BROADCAST.

 

You wish you could explain more, but that look on his face as he told you about John - you can't. 

 

 **KARKAT:** PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE.

 

He doesn't say anything else. Sollux is walking up to your car to retrieve you, and some of your neighbors are standing outside watching the commotion. This is the worst day, the longest day, but you gotta get through it somehow. Giving up would just be giving that monster what he wanted.

 

 

♋️

 

 

The police can’t track HAILLORDENGLISH down exactly, they report to you the rest of the week. They say that because he is an international hacker, who expertly hides his real location, there is no real jurisdiction for them and no warrant in their power that can arrest him. They also still don’t know his real identity; they’ve identified the malware, reverse engineered his tactics, and removed it from the devices infected - or so they claim. But the person behind it all made off with no repercussions.

 

Regardless, “uu” seems to be done ruining your life. The next few weeks, The Quadrant is down, but you don’t hear anything from him again.

 

It isn’t like you’d know if he was trying to contact you – through the rest of the month of November, you are paranoid and obsessed about being anywhere near a phone or computer. This is the first time you’ve lived completely dark and offline in – over ten years, really. You don't attend school for the first two weeks, completing what homework you can on independent study, sending it to campus in the mornings with Kanaya. Principal Doc recommended your brief sabbatical, and you wish you could just stay home the rest of the semester. Finals are coming up, though, so eventually, you do have to go back. It does help that any phone line to you is completely unreachable, that you have no idea how much people could be shit talking your fiasco.

 

When you do get back to school, Kanaya and Rose stand a force field by your side before and after classes. You sit away from everyone else, your headphones over your ears, connected to your old CD player. You don't make eye contact with anyone, not even those who strain to try and make it - your brother's friends, freshmen, any acquaintances you may've had before. The constant earplugs help you from hearing what they might be whispering. You barely talk to Rose and Kanaya on campus. You're a hollow, pencil pushing zombie.

 

You see Terezi talking to Kanaya and Rose on the day before finals start, early December, just after your sixth period. You stall when you see the three of them talking in front of your locker. Freeze up, wish you could run the other direction, but panic sticks you to the floor. When they notice you watching, Terezi moves like she’s going to come towards you. Kanaya puts a hand on her arm, giving her pause; asks her to give you some space for right now.

 

You haven’t slept more than three hours a night; Dave is around at school, he’s always around, but he and John are still hanging out in the same clan and it makes you feel like a fool. Dave’s been wearing his Spectacles, dark and heavy over his face, since you broke up. You haven’t known if he’s been staring at you, half because whenever you see a glimpse of his blonde head you dart, feeling like you might throw up into the nearest potted plant, and half because you kind of want him to chase you. Even if you could just hate him and his dysfunctional loyalties right now - even if you  _did_ tell him to leave you alone - even if in reality you would probably just keep running.

 

On the last day of classes, after finals are done, Dave does finally make it your way. You’re cleaning out some things from your locker when he comes and stands next to you, nervous as fuck. He’s gone and removed the glasses so you can see his eyes. He looks like shit, or as much as he can; straining, dark shadows like he’s been getting even less sleep than you have. It makes you twinge so much that you have to look away.

 

“Karkat.”

 

You ignore him, though your face burns; his scent and nostalgia are taking you back.

 

“I’m really sorry about what happened with us, how I acted that morning and what I said. I just wanted you to know that John means - “

 

You slam your locker door shut and walk away, at even just the sound of John’s name on his lips. Make the mistake of turning over your shoulder once, seeing Dave stand completely still and watch after you. There he is, offering placation, attempting to give you the closure you claim that you need so much of. But when faced with the reality of it? You can’t. You just can’t right now.

 

Dave is gone for winter break – a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California/Mexico with him, John, Dirk, and Jake - you learned of his vacation before you broke up. You spend your break in the dark in your room, lying in bed with no electronics, smoking some, but not really. Occasionally, Sollux and Nepeta come by to keep your company, playing movies on one of their laptops that they show you extensively, indeed, are no longer infected. You have nightmares, sometimes – that whoever "uu" is, he find your friends and family and personally hurts them, or maybe you. You can’t go outside, for fear that someone will show up to your house, blame you for the crazy spectacle. The police still haven't found him, and you don't know shit about how this blew over in the community, how the people who watched your show across the country were affected, because you still won't even look at anything digital. Your friends have sworn to not tell you anything about it either.

 

Finally, you need access to the Internet when the official schedules for the spring semester at Valley View are posted. Kanrki lets you borrow his laptop, and you trust his device marginally because he was not a part of the hack, having never touched your radio show – there’s one silver lining. You log into the school site to see your classes cautiously, checking TCPView on his Windows to see if anyone is connected to his network but you. You remain alone on it, suspiciously quiet. Eventually, you crawl your way into your Pesterchum, knowing that Kanaya and Rose have probably sent you things. Grateful that even though an entire universe of people know your name now, Karkat Vantas, carcinoGeneticist is still your private sobriquet. Right now, Kanaya and Rose are in Aspen, Colorado with Rose’s mom, skiing and enjoying vacation. At the end of all of their photo pesters to you, grimAuxillatrix and tentacleTherapist write, “We love you, Karkat.”

 

And then:

 

There is the fact that, three days ago, Dave pestered you. A whopping seventy nine messages, and you wouldn’t read into it, but seventy nine is a fucking lot of confessional work, you know how Dave gets when he pesters. He’s obviously taken the time to explain something, maybe every deep dark working of his brain that you’ve always wanted to know.

 

turntechGodhead began pestering carcinoGeneticist at 11:07:13

carcinoGeneticist is offline

TG: hey

TG: so im just gonna get started here

TG: im in cabo right now but im taking a break from the beach and ocean swim and surf and dirkjake going on all these hikes and dragging me along even though they know i dont work out and cant keep up for shit

TG: cabo really is beautiful though

TG: its like sunshine seventy degrees and salt smell in your hair all year round

TG: might fuck around learn some spanish live here one day

TG: anyway

TG: ive had a lot of time to think even though the teams been wanting to party

TG: ive partied a little barely but i also havent been in the mood

TG: i cant stop thinking about you

TG: nothings happening here with john by the way

TG: it hasnt in a long time

TG: i didnt get a chance to explain that last morning we were together on account of my nervous fucking inappropriate rambling and being afraid of how deep i felt for you and im really sorry i said that idiotic guilty quip about going down on him when you were trying to break down my walls

TG: i shouldve let you

TG: i will now

TG: but ever since i fell for you me and him have been totally hands off

TG: like i said nothings happened in a while even if we were doing it for so long before

TG: he wasnt too happy about me having a real boyfriend aka you as i now know even though he doesnt even like me like that

TG: no dickrubbing has gone down on the real since sophomore year even tho he teases it *could* happen on some hypothetical day but i know it wont cause john mostly likes girls and if we did it now it would just be cause he feels bad for my ass and that he led me on for so many years when we were kids and honestly i dont even know if hes bi i dont know what to fucking do with him

TG: but i dont want john

TG: saying what i said and getting butthurt about that pic was a pathetic backslide

TG: i deserve better

TG: so do you when it comes to me and all my mess

TG: but fuck

TG: i dont want anybody but you

TG: thats all i keep thinking while im out here and while i stare at these gorgeous views and wish you were here and you and i could be alone here on vacation or honeymoon in some future

TG: watching the sun go down in your eyes letting the sands work their magic

TG: even if you rightly dont ever wanna fucking speak to me again which i totally understand

TG: i love you so much

TG: wish i could call you and tell you this but you also understandably dont have a phone currently

TG: caliborn wont be bothering you ever again if i and my bros have a say in the matter

TG: to answer your question no they didnt kill him

TG: i mean it certainly wasnt off the table but

TG: the guys been stalking gay and bi dudes online like his whole life

TG: [https://thealternianpress.org/infamous-international-hacker-haillordenglish-serving-life-sentence/](https://thealternianpress.org/notorious-hacker-haillordenglish-serving-life-sentence/)

TG: type of shit he pulled with you was just his poppycock busywork filing his nails during commercial breaks and what not

TG: some kind of sick individual pleasure

TG: dudes got botnets on botnets on bitcoins

TG: apparently haillordenglish goddamn completely defunded a whole banking system in switzerland and several asian governments

TG: turns out he was born in the us but hiding in krasnoyarsk

TG: thats a real place in russia no i didnt just keysmash

TG: bro has got this fiercely protective streak like i know he fucks up a lot and its part of why im so damaged

TG: but obviously caliborn found his way to you through me somehow

TG: the quadrant was this local phenomenon before i called safe in a good way

TG: and until i saw how those people affected you i never realized like HUNDREDS of thousands of people watch and follow sbhj and my youtube show and other dave strider brand projects on a daily basis

TG: maybe haillordenglish was always watching me but bro does all my sites and my phones security and encryption dirks and jakes too so maybe caliborn settled on you because he thought you might be an easier target

TG: or maybe it had not shit to do with me and im digging a bigger hole here

TG: fuck an easier target what the fuck is wrong with me im really sorry

TG: this is an emotional disaster reporting for duty i should probably stop typing

TG: or maybe like send it all as one big long message instead of line breaking

TG: i cant stop the line breaks it keeps happening

TG: but anyway bro knows some hackers from “back in his day” thats how he always says it and when i told him he walked silently away from me and left again for a month

TG: came back and just said "its over dave"

TG: he contacted those hackers and they plus dirk got down to work with some authorities and busted this motherfucker

TG: i dont really understand how he organized it and certainly not how he managed to get it done over the course of a month but

TG: thats my bro for you

TG: but i dont want you thinking like i had my family save you all deus ex machina because i think that youre incapable of saving yourself

TG: i was scared

TG: bro knew i mean he only met you that one time for a few seconds but

TG: he knew that i loved you

TG: and then i went on this trip instead of staying home with you because the thought of that guy hurting you while i couldnt do anything about it was just

TG: i ran away

TG: even after i told bro and i knew caliborn was gone and you were going to be ok i still went away on vacation because im prideful

TG: you read it right i love you karkat and is it too soon probably yes like way the fuck yes but i think ive loved you since that night i kissed you in my pool

TG: and that morning

TG: when you agreed to let me give you a ride home and i was countin my lucky stars that maybe i had another chance

TG: its not like we were strangers to each other before this even if i tried to act like you didnt exist you were always there in my head cause terezi loved you

TG: i was always comparing myself to you secretly and that counts for time added to this in a way

TG: ive thought about you for years

TG: youre this enigma youre so riotous and loud and you can tear people to shreds when they need to hear it but its really just your big feelings being so aggressively caring for everyone around you

TG: youre so fine too i know people have always made fun of you for being short and frowny but you have beautiful genes man these really big soul searching black eyes and even kankris got your look in his way

TG: hows he doing by the way i think cronus is really bad for him

TG: you probably already know that

TG: okay

TG: you might not even read any of this

TG: holy shit a fuckin seagull just tried catchin this fish outta water and fuckin failed and flew into my window holy shit lkjfdlf;s

TG: omg dave get it together

TG: but yeah

TG: i just wanted to say that im really sorry about how things ended between us

TG: and i hope youre resting and sleeping over your break

TG: i miss you stupidly

turntechGodhead ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist at 12:15:09

 

You do sleep that night, a full twelve hours. It's not just what Dave said, though his thoughtful words do release something significant in your soul. Finally, you have closure. It's the fact that you know HAILLORDENGLISH is doing time; the fact that Dave and John had nothing to do with your relationship, that you worked yourself up over something in the past. That you have reconnected online, the world didn't come to a halt. You have no nightmares, your spring semester is a go for the following year. You are going to be okay after all.

 

That morning, you and Kankri have a heart to heart - or as much as the unchanging Kankri can have one. It starts when you apologize for attacking him in the hallway the other night, sitting down next to him at the kitchen table where he's nursing a glass of orange juice. You two have existed in near complete silence in your house as the month has gone on, though you have felt your tension slowly melting away. This gives you the bravery to finally try and formally end whatever qualms you have between you.

 

"No, I - sort of deserved you hitting me," Kankri says. "I've been terrorizing you, unwarranted and on purpose, because it gives me this false feeling of power and importance when you feel small. It doesn't last, though, and I'm tired. It is not a competition between us, even if - even if our father encourages that between you and I. I can't believe I'm actually telling you this, but he brags about you to me - Karkat gets good grades this, Karkat doesn't talk back that, Karkat doesn't ask what happened to his mother, so you shouldn't care or ask what I do with yours."

 

This startles you. "Is he - "

 

"Nevermind that you're a walking fog machine, talk back to literally everyone else that you encounter, and unironically dressed like a member of Some Chemical Romance for a number of years." He sighs. "I'm sorry. Please be patient with me, I'm not in the habit of doling compliments unless there's something in it for me at the end."

 

Was there a compliment in there somewhere? "No kidding."

 

"I'm jealous of you. I always have been. My mother and I were miserable, when he left us with no word. Come to find out he traded us for your mother and you, his happier, stronger, more charismatic son. I'll stop you before you negate what I've just said about you, as your self loathing is only a touch smaller than my own, and I know you don't believe it. I can't blame him for wanting you instead. I was a pain in the ass as a child, whiny, ungrateful. I'll also stop you before you agree that I am still all of those things. But you and I have been through the same sort of catenation - neglect, loss, misunderstanding, depression - and still you have all of these genuine relationships, the ability to love without wanting in return, the ability to listen and not judge. You are without a doubt the bravest person that I've ever met. That you were able to get up every night and speak into that radio show no matter who might hear, no matter who might come after you. And here I preach to empty pews; only the safe few, the people I know are too apathetic or think I'm too weak and not worth their time, to ever actually come at me for what I say. I never listened to you share your heart so openly on that show because I was jealous. That my own heart is so unbearably ugly in comparison."

 

You're so stunned by his revelation that you can't properly respond to it. "Wow. Thanks."

 

The topic of your discussion drifts to your father briefly, whether or not he's making good on kicking Kankri out of the house for his semester grades. Kankri says that he got tutoring, didn't fail any of his finals. This relieves you; he probably would've just shacked up with his shitty boyfriend.

 

"Since we're actually talking like two rational human beings for once," you say. "I have to ask. What the fuck is it with you and Cronus? He's, like, the worst guy I've ever come into contact with IRL, and literally everyone I know agrees with me. He's popular because Meenah's forced to be related to him by blood, and he's well off, and he's fake charming 'til you realize he's actually just backhanded insulting you the entire time, and he does drugs and drinks a lot and people think that's cool. But yeah."

 

Kankri chuckles. "My pity for him is beyond even my understanding, sometimes. But he was the first person who spoke to me at school when I moved here. Granted, that was only because he - found me attractive, and no one had ever - no _boy_ had ever told me that I was desirable before. It was aggressive, but he followed me around for three days straight; once I told him that I was chaste, he stopped hitting on me for a moment and we actually started talking - he was funny, and he thought that I was compelling, and he introduced me to Meenah, who introduced me to Porrim, and - I was so lonely, before him. Before he opened me."

 

This still doesn't make it clear to you why he would ever have sex with him. You don't mean to say this out loud, but you do. Kankri doesn't deny anything. Goes beyond that, more than you are expecting. And notably, his smile goes away. He looks broken, heartsick. Like he's trying to convince himself of it:

 

"He didn't really ask me. How I felt about - it, at first. After a while, he kept - doing it, and then taking it away, and I sort of started to lose my head over it. Want it myself, so badly. E-every night. So then, he would say that I was too clingy. Desperate. Two days later, become obsessed with me again - but he always comes back to me, and that's what - I don't know if you've noticed, but my friends tolerate my presence. I can tell that no one really wants me to speak as much as I do. I know. He listens to what I have to say, so long as he's getting what he wants too, and he - when he loves me, he really,  _really_ loves me. He's not just some loser. He's... misunderstood. I can help him, I know I can. I know you think that I'm incapable of it, but - I love him."

 

"But why? Why would you want somebody who plays games with your head? Does he ever even say sorry?"

 

Kankri looks away, closes his eyes. His fingertips drum the glass. 

 

"Look," you say to him, "I know I've never said anything nice about you as long as we've known each other, but - you don't deserve this, Kankri. You really, really don't. You can do better."

 

"Can I?"

 

Kankri is crying then, slow and light.

 

"I don't know that I can."

 

This conversation haunts you, weighs on you the rest of the day. How he's let himself be called desperate for something _he didn't even want in the first place._ How he's conditioned himself into believing that simply being heard in exchange for being compromised and manipulated is okay. How is that love? You know that it is not, that pressure and coercion and back and forth - that you have never been subjected to any of that in your romances, not from Terezi, and not from Dave. They have never loved you perfectly, and both made mistakes - so did you - but not without acknowledgement, not without regret. Even with the platonic loves of your life - Nepeta, Sollux, Equius, Kanaya, and Rose - there is both disagreement and conciliation, always sorry and forgiveness.

 

Dave's pesterlog to you makes you contemplate nature of this love - true love - even further. You read it again, over and over, overwhelmed at him both inadvertently bringing about the worst thing that's ever happened to you and also righting it, the power of the bond in his family - broken as it is - coming to your aid because _that's how much he loves you._ You re-read it and cry at some parts of it: in rapture at things like _while i stare at these gorgeous views and wish you were here and you and i could be alone here on vacation or honeymoon in some future_ and in laughter at his  _holy shit a fuckin seagull just tried catchin this fish outta water and fuckin failed and flew into my window holy shit lkjfdlf;s._ You love him, the massive dork, the flaws and the blunders and the way that he is working through the errors of his childhood construction, trying, though he will never be perfect. You are hesitant, have not yet worked through it with him face to face, and there is real mending to be done between you. But this love is not something you can walk away from; maybe not just yet.

 

Kankri's laptop is still sitting on your desk. You open it, log back into Pesterchum, and try.

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering turntechGodhead at 15:56:09

CG: HEY.

CG: YOU’RE BACK NOW, RIGHT?

CG: CAN WE TALK IN PERSON?

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

“So," you say to Dave. No beating around the bush. You're sitting in his bedroom, windows and balcony doors open. He has some explaining to do, in the flesh, re: the rather harsh way he let you know that John was a thing at one point, from the other side of the bed on which you both sit. He knows this.

 

“So things didn’t go that well with John," he begins.

 

“Oh?”

 

“I mean, a week of the trip was fine. We partied together like it wasn’t no thing. But then we talked kinda seriously about how fucked up it all was and it’s probably got a lot to do with our stunted childhoods and withholding prankster ass families. And about how awkward and dodgy I've been towards him since you and I broke up, 'cause it wasn't really his doing, but deep down, it sorta was. That was when he told me he didn’t like that I was dating you because he still ‘thought’ that maybe one day – and then I stopped him right fuckin’ there, ‘cause we’ve been down that road and he doesn’t mean it. Anyway we didn’t really talk to each other the rest of the trip. One day we’ll move on from it. Maybe.”

 

Yikes.

 

Dave isn’t happy about these tensions with John, and the fact that “he and Terezi are definitely a thing now by the way” he casually drops, and you can’t just ask him to heal from John’s pull on him his whole life tomorrow. These things take time, as you know from the pain you still feel in your heart about breaking up with Terezi. It’s gotten better, scarred over, but it’s not all the way out. It may not be for a few months or maybe even years. Relationships are complicated like that. You aren’t pining to be with her anymore, letting go of those mistakes. That’s a start. It’s more like a longing for what was that you know will never come back. Nostalgia. You have this intense, devastating, overwhelming connection with Dave Strider now, even if it's complicated too, and that’s what matters.

 

And _he_ _loves you._

 

“I don’t know," Dave goes on. "It’s just one of those bittersweet apples you’ve chewed through to the core that now you have no choice but to let die in the ground all slow and organic. It all starts to fade with the passage of time. But yeah, I guess for such a long time I didn’t wanna believe he’s never going to - ” He stops, sighs a little. “Be, you know. Like live it out, I guess. But it’s like I said, it’s not fair to myself that I blocked myself from something else or living a full life waiting around for him. The horse is long dead and I’m finally right enough to see it.”

 

You pause at this. Look at him as he looks at you, and you are undone by the processing you're given in this moment of quiet. This is the first time you're seeing him in life since reading all of those words, and it's...heavy.

 

“Do you really love me?”

 

“Yeah. I do.

 

“You don’t have to say it back. I completely understand if I’m too complicated or if I’ve put you through enough with all my problems. I’m still gonna love you though, just me. You’re gonna move on from here and have this full, happy life, and I’m gonna be here rooting for you, listening to every single goddamn word of whatever radio show you’re a star in, taking in all that sage advice you give ‘cause god knows your boy needs a dose of it every day like sin. You’ve always been the wiser one of the two of us. No matter what we decide that we are to each other, in the future, I’m still gonna appreciate the fuck out of the way you fight and pursue what's right and never let the dark cover the truth. Even if you have to go, and I never see you again. 'Cause that’s what love is.”

 

Fuck. You are not going to cry, you are not going to. 

 

"No, I - I love you too, Dave, and I'm not just saying it. I have for a while now, hating myself for it, but it's like - all the reasons I was trying so hard to not let myself before - they're gone now. It was so terrifying, the thought of everyone finding out who I really am, how fucking -  _vulnerable_ and headlong and so in love with love that I can't help myself. But this thing I have with you - I hated you so much because you were hot and I thought that when you started wanting me, showing up no matter what kind of mood I was in, consistent, day after day - I thought that I didn't deserve it. But I wanna be here." The tears come anyway, and you just let them. "I wanna show everyone how much I love your stupid rambling and the way you treated those kids who looked up to you at the fair. I wanna spend every minute with you - not just Internet minutes, not hiding behind any online personas or pretending I don't feel what I feel anymore. I just wanna be with you. At school, in front of everyone, your house or mine."

 

Dave is almost crying too, redness of his nose, flushed cheeks. "You're sittin' real far away from me over there and I feel like we just breached somethin' big and like maybe we should hug."

 

"Yes, you asshole, we should probably hug."

 

You do, reaching across the bed, your bodies joining. He's so warm, you are enveloped in his familiar scent, and he holds onto you like he's never going to let go.

 

Dave does let go, eventually, wiping a single tear from his lid. He smiles, sighs, and then opens that mouth to ramble on some more:

 

“And y'know this whole split personality secretive double life thing you were doing, Karkat in the day and KK in the night - you know you never really needed it. When I first listened to your broadcasts, I wasn't like, _wow,_ KK is so badass and confident but Karkat is a total square. They were always both you to me. Before Terezi did the thing, I knew there was more to you, I knew you were hiding or holding back or _something_ , and once I heard what it was, everything just like. Clicked. It's like you did all of that work to try and make us think you didn't have us read, but you  _read,_ and yeah it's like the triviality of 'identities' and 'names' and how it doesn't really mean anything about who a person is, like Oscar Wilde and shit.”

 

“Who?”

 

“He writes plays, dude, seriously? Wrote plays, he's been dead since like 1924. Or earlier. Whatever. He's like the penultimate homosexual subtext literary old white guy of The Canon, motherfucker got arrested for 'gross indecency with men' and still was like, nah, fuck y'all, I'm gay _and_ I write better than all of you. _The Picture of Dorian Grey_ is like, the best audiobook I've ever not fallen asleep to, do you really not know?”

 

“Forgive me for not knowing every single shitting detail about 'the literary old white guys' when seventy five percent of them were racist and their lackluster novels are forced upon our curriculums ten times over comparable writers of color."

 

“You right. No but seriously, he has this really great one called _The Importance of Being Earnest,_ and when I read it for dummy English, I thought it was gonna be some dumb recidivist, revolutionary flag wavin’, lyin’ ass rose colored goggles wearin’ British white colonialist hogwash. But it was cool. Poetic and proper. Says what I’m trying to say here.”

 

“I hope you realize that none of those descriptors made sense all mushed together like that. We should see about getting you that muzzle.”

 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

 

“Anyway the movie had Colin Firth in it and you know he’s one of my boys. In it Colin Firth a.k.a. Jack is trying to pretend like he's this guy called Earnest to get this girl he loves to love him back, and then this _other_ guy Algernon is also trying to be that same guy called Earnest so the girl that _he_ loves loves him back too. My point is, in the end, it turns out that they didn't even need to do all that. There was some mild confusion about the name but the girls loved who they loved the whole time. It's a critique on how Victorian society was so caught up in classism and 'this person can't marry this person because supposedly they were a poor orphan bastard,' and yeah we're livin' in 2017 but people can still be like that. You should read it, I have a script. I'll let you borrow it."

 

You are so both fed up and content with this boy's ridiculousness that you just can't. In a good way.

 

"The homosexual subtext? Not really seeing it based on your thrilling summary."

 

"Debatable. Literally, critics have been debating it since the dawn of time or whenever it came out. It's there if you squint."

 

 You laugh at him, face in your palm, and shake your head.

 

"What?" Dave says.

 

“Nothing, just. I missed you, dumbass.”

 

Dave reaches across the bed for your spare hand, kisses your knuckles.

 

“Missed you too, babe.”

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

When you get home, back inside your safe bedroom, there is a letter waiting for you on the floor. Kankri must've slipped it under while you were gone. 

 

The envelope looks worn, multiple stamps and imprints in the right corner; your name and address have been written in black loopy cursive, the ink running. You eye the return address in the left corner, and it's from the Philippines. 

 

"Holy shit." 

 

It bears your mother's name: _Victoria Ocampo._

 

Your arms and legs shake as you fall into your desk chair. You rip the envelope open and find a cream piece of stationary, written on both sides in Tagalog. You can't read this shit at all, but  _it's her, she found you -_

 

The Motorola phone has been shut off and in your desk drawer for weeks, but you scramble to dig it out, power it on, and immediately dial Sollux.

 

"I'm coming over."

 

_"Right now?"_

 

"Yes. I'll explain when I get there."

 

_"Okay."_

 

You drive at an ungodly speed all the way to Ensena, run up the stairs to Sollux's house and let yourself in - wave at his parents in the living room, who smile at you - and are panting by the time you've reached Sollux's tech-filled bedroom in the back.

 

Sollux rises from the dual monitors at his desk as soon as you enter, frowning from behind his bi-colored glasses. But when he sees the no doubt euphoric look on your face, he relaxes somewhat.

 

You hand the letter to him abruptly. "I need you to translate this."

 

Your friend lifts his glasses over his head, scanning the page briefly. "Tagalog? What ith thith?"

 

"It's a letter from my mom."

 

"No thit!" Sollux punches you in the shoulder in congratulations. "Are you crying?"

 

"Fuck you, yes I'm crying! I thought she was gone, I thought she was dead, I thought - can you just do it already? And don't you dare fucking write it in those nasty i's and two's."

 

Sollux grins.

 

You watch him from a secondary chair that he pulled up for you at his desk, as he old school transcribes every word from her by hand. You read it as it comes alive on his notebook paper, overwhelmed by the love that it brings:

 

 

_My dear love, my only son, Karkat,_

 

_I'm sorry for the language of this letter, and that it is coming so late in your life. I have not been able to write to anyone or access a telephone in many years. For a long time, right after your father divorced me, I was held in custody at the U.S. Border for crossing illegally. They would not allow me to contact anyone or make arrangements for my own transport. When I finally got deported back to the Philippines, it had been so long since I had spoken to my family, I was not able to find them. They did not approve of my crossing, or my marriage to your father._

 

_The immigrant control left my caravan in a city where I did not know anyone. I married another man, who was a smuggler, who said that he would protect me. He was cruel and did not allow me to communicate with anyone else. I will not worry you with the details - it has been a long, dark journey for me. Though it has taken eight years, I am finally in my own home, renting from one of my childhood friends who rescued me. I have a job, my own money, and spare time._

 

_Only days into my liberation, I read in a newspaper about what happened to you that same week. The hacker, how your identity was stolen, how many other crimes he has committed throughout the world. I tried to find out how to reach you, to make certain that you were safe, but I could not find a phone number, address, or any social media for you. Of course, I understand your reasons for privacy, given what you have been through. Then, it occurred to me - if I know anything about your father, who hates change, you are still in the house that we lived in together in California. I have addressed this there._

 

_Karkat, I hope this letter reaches you. I apologize for not being allowed to stay. People are people, and the world has no borders, but not everyone agrees that we should all be together. I am still your mother, no matter where I am in the world. It was only by thinking about you that I was able to survive my diaspora. I do not regret for a minute traveling to America, making sure that you would have a better life. I am so proud of you. The article speaks of your popular radio show, your successes as a student in high school._

 

_I would love for us to meet again someday. I know it is a long distance and I am no longer able to come to you. But I will send you the money to come to me, if you wish it._

 

_Be well, my son. I love you. Hope to hear from you soon,_

 

_Victoria_

 

 

Everything that happened - the loss of your job, the hack, your name's association with it, your entanglement with Dave and the role that it played - all of those things have led up to this wonderful conclusion. Your mother was free of captivity  _the same week_ that your whole world went under. She found your name, happenstance, in a newspaper thousands of miles away.

 

Sollux flicks his hand, probably cramping, as you hold the finished translation in your hands.

 

"Thank you so much."

 

You're reaching over to hug him then. Sollux goes stiff, all bones, and it occurs to you that you've never actually hugged him before. He doesn't really relax any, just sort of pats your shoulder awkwardly through the endeavor.

 

"I know you're miserable like this, damn it, but let me hug you." You sniffle. "I love you."

 

After a beat:

 

"I really love you too."

 

 

♋️

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue will bring The Quadrant's triumphant comeback, Terezi and Karkat's much needed conversation, more DaveKat fluff, and more healing. Thank you for being here.


	11. Chapter 11

_My guy pretty like a girl_  
_And he got fight stories to tell_  
_I see both sides like Chanel_  
_C on both sides like Chanel_  
_V both sides of the 12_  
_Steam both sides of the L_  
_Freeze smoke rings and they hail_  
_Sleet snow grind for the wealth_  
_Whole team diamonds is real  
_ _Showed 'em how to shine by themselves_

 _-_ Frank Ocean, “[Chanel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnbsIl2BnWw)”

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

Your biggest fear was always being too happy. It wasn't necessarily that you didn't want to be happy, but rather, that too much success, support, safety, and love made you fear for the moment they would inevitably leave you. So much so, you neglected to realize they never wanted to leave you.

 

They were always just waiting on you to let them stay.

 

It's March, spring break, and now that Team Adorabloodthirsty has moderately recovered from the hack's financial setbacks - as well as the emotional ones - the four of you feel ready to dust off The Quadrant once more. At the end of his last semester, Equius managed to convince his thesis professor that the radio project itself was worth a grade of completion, despite the extenuating circumstances that none of you could've had any control over. In fact, when he presented it to the class, the general response was that your tenacity in continuing after the curveballs, as long as you could, deserved its share of praise.

 

Dave's house will serve as your comeback team's home base station, at least for now. Equius, Nepeta, and Sollux are down the spacious den with you and Dave, chairs in front of monitors and mics in the inlet in the room that serves as the studio. It wasn't Sollux's preference to do the re-launch here, but not even Equius and Nepeta could pass up the chance to do your show over with the most professional, beautiful sound equipment any random guy on the street was going to offer. Your boyfriend isn't just some random guy on the street, though.

 

You and Dave have been so happy lately, sometimes you think the universe is kidding you. Gone are the days of furtively pestering him, sneaking across the back lots of campus just to see him, and isolating your love life. Every day, Dave spends his time with you, Rose, and Kanaya, at home in the groove of your L-shaped table. His affectionate side is always in full bloom, holding your hands throughout the halls _,_  bragging to people he knows about even your most minute accomplishment, telling everyone you mutually know that "he's probably just going to have to marry you."

 

"'Cause I mean, there's no way I'm letting go of him," he told Kanaya one day, who told you. "He's so passionate about what he does, he could outyell God and still probably be right, and have you _seen_ him? No, really, I know you're a card carrying lesbian with the coolest girlfriend ever, but how could anybody look at that face and not be literally stunned into devotion? Like, he's gonna have to dump _me_ , and if he never does? Sweet bro, let's just get married."

 

As Sollux and Equius set up the online stream, Nepeta shows you and Dave the new features of the shipping wall she's going to roll out just after the new episode. She's also got it in her heart to work on an app that is purely shipping wall, private boards shared between groups of friends who can tag and ship to their heart's content. None of you are quite ready to ambassador an entire app again - it took two and a half months to refund everyone who purchased the first one and you're not about to go back to hemoragging money - but it's a hopeful idea of a plan, that maybe one day this show will take off in a manner that true creative success like this is possible. You can always count on Nepeta to keep the heart of the show going strong.

 

You're probably the most reluctant of your friends to get back on the air, though there isn't much reluctance to speak of, all things considered. It's nerves, mostly, understandable nerves. You underwent your social media blackout until just last week, and it was helpful, but speaking into a microphone again has started to feel foreign to you, and you don't like that. Hearing the sound of your voice practicing your new script for this episode, even just to yourself alone, was uncomfortable and awkward for a while. It just made you think about Caliborn's fraudulent perception of you, like when you start the new show you're going to talk and his words are going to spill from your mouth instead. But it's three months exactly today since the date the suicide note was posted, and that's what's motivating you to start again. He can't take the one thing you've always been most proud of about yourself - your ability to reach across sound waves and pull people in with _your_ voice - and this show today is symbolically shoving your middle finger and that sentiment up his ass, wherever it's rotting in federal prison.

 

Last week, you broke your online silence by posting a forum on The Quadrant, sticking it to the homepage. Sollux, Nepeta and Equius had long logged into their usernames a month before to show you that there were still people holding out on the site, using it and posting to each other as your friends went in and tweaked things, improved things, prepared the website for its re-launch. The Alternian Press Online even gave your post some plug, bringing in a modest swell of newer users, curious to find out whatever happened to that guy they read that story about. It's you, you're the guy, and it's time to own it.

 

**ifihatemyselfsomuchwhydontihatemarrymyself:**

HEY @everyone. I'M SORRY I HAVEN'T SHOWN MY FACE, ER, VOICE, AROUND THE QUADRANT TO EXPLAIN WHAT WENT DOWN HERE IN MY OWN WORDS. YOU ALL DESERVE BETTER, BUT INSTEAD OF MAKING THAT A STATEMENT ROOTED IN SELF LOATHING AS I MIGHT'VE DONE IN THE PAST, I'M JUST GOING TO BE BETTER. FROM NOW ON.

I THINK IT'S SAFE TO SAY THAT IF YOU'RE STILL ON THIS HELLSITE, IN THE EMPTY AFTERMATH AND QUIET DUST OF WHAT WAS A TRULY HORRIFYING BUT ALSO VERY FAKE SUICIDE NOTE, YOU WERE PROBABLY ALWAYS WITH US, LISTENING IN AT TWO IN THE MORNING FROM THE BEGINNING. THAT WAS WHEN I WENT BY KK, BUT AS YOU MIGHT ALREADY KNOW, MY NAME IS KARKAT. THAT WASN'T ME YOU HEARD IN THAT LAST MESSAGE - IT'S COMPLICATED BUT I BASICALLY HAD MY VOICE TURNED INTO AI BY A HACKER - BUT THAT REALLY IS MY FIRST NAME. MY NAME IS KARKAT VANTAS, I'M ALIVE, AND THOUGH I CAN HONESTLY SAY THIS WASN'T ALWAYS MY INTENTION, I INTEND TO STAY THAT WAY.

I WAS AFRAID OF USING MY REAL NAME BEFORE, OR LETTING ANY OF YOU KNOW WHAT I LOOKED LIKE, THOUGH I APPRECIATE THE FANART, BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID OF WHAT A LOT OF US ARE IN LIFE: BEING JUDGED, BEING VULNERABLE, AND HAVING EVERYONE FIND OUT THAT YEAH OKAY THERE  _IS_ SOMETHING TO FUCKING GAYDAR I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS DON'T @ ME BUT I WASN'T SURE I WANTED EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT I WAS POSSIBLY - AND NOW, FUCK IT. KK WAS ALWAYS A BISEXUAL BLEEDING ROMANTIC SAP WHO WANTED TO EMBODY BOTH THE MASCULINE AND THE FEMININE AND SPREAD LOVE TO THE FUCKING MASSES. KARKAT ISN'T SURE THAT'S REALLY WHAT HE ACHIEVED, BUT DAMN IF HE DIDN'T HAVE AN IDENTITY CRISIS AND BE THE REASON SOME DERANGED RUSSIAN JACKASS FINALLY WENT TO PRISON. DAMN IF HE DIDN'T DO JUST FUCKING THAT.

THIS IS MY FIRST TIME LOGGING IN AGAIN SINCE THE ALTERNIAN PRESS STORY, BUT @ta HAS TOLD ME THAT THE FORUMS AND THE SHIPPING WALL WERE _STILL_ BEING UPDATED BY YOU GUYS EVEN THROUGH THE POLICE AND FBI SHAKING THIS PLACE OUT FOR ALL IT WAS WORTH. I CAN'T SAY THAT THE TRAFFIC TO OUR SITE HASN'T SLOWED A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT, MAYBE BACK TO WHAT IT WAS BEFORE THE NIGHT MY IDIOT BOYFRIEND @davestrider CALLED IN AND ASKED, AND I QUOTE, "WHO YOU HEARD SAYING WHITE BOYS DON'T KNOW HOW TO RAP?" WHICH WAS, BY THE WAY, THE MOMENT I FELL IN LOVE WITH HIM. YEAH, THE SBHJ GUY? LIKE SEVENTEEN OF YOU CALLED IT. 

BUT THE FACT THAT THE QUADRANT STILL LIVES ON IN INFAMY??? THAT ONE OF OUR EARLIEST LISTENERS @britneyspearscansuckit AND HER FRIENDS HAVE A 245 DAY DRAWING STREAK, THAT @ac'S SHIPPING WALL HAS GROWN SO MUCH THAT IF IT WERE LAID ON PAPER IT WOULD STRETCH FOR SIX MILES (YES WE CALCUATED THAT, @ct HAS TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS AND I LOVE HIM FOR IT), THAT SO MANY OF YOU LAUGHED AND CRIED WITH A BITCH ON THE AIR WHEN I WAS SLEEP DEPRIVED AND HONESTLY, REALLY FUCKING LONELY SOMETIMES.THE FACT THAT YOU'VE BROUGHT TA, AC, CT AND I TOGETHER IN WAYS THAT WE COULD'T EVEN DESCRIBE. I REALLY CAN'T BELIEVE IT.

AND AT THE SAME TIME, I REALLY CAN. I CAN'T APOLOGIZE ENOUGH FOR THE LACK OF OVERSIGHT ON OUR PART RE: THE CYBERSECURITY OF OUR AMBITIOUS EXPANSION ENDEAVORS, THOUGH OUR ADVERSARY FROM THE FALL WAS KIND OF A SPECIAL CASE. BUT WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THAT WHAT WAS FORMERLY OUR MALICIOUS MOBILE APP HAS BEEN 95% REFUNDED TO ALL IMPACTED. IF YOU ARE STILL WAITING FOR A REFUND, MESSAGE @ta. NEW AND BETTER ENCRYPTION IS IN OUR FUTURE, IF YOU WILL SEE US THROUGH IT.

ANYWAY, I LOVE YOU ASSHOLES AND YOUR BLEEDING HEARTS, ETC ETC. NEW EPISODE COMING SOON.

THANKS FOR BEING HERE.

<3 KK/KARKAT

 

A week after posting the message, here you are about to go live; thirty minutes until go time, Dave is sitting underneath you in the chair before your mic, hands loosely wrapped around your waist as your friends bicker and laugh to each other during stream set up. You're still a little nervous, but feeling considerably better than you did a week ago, three months ago, six months ago at that.

 

You're bouncing one of your legs absently, scrolling through The Quadrant's homepage on your laptop and making sure everything looks tip top, when Dave settles his hand your active thigh.

 

"You're doing that thing again where you're so excited or worried about somethin' it just can't stay contained in your little body. It's fightin' to get out through one of those legs but you're so thick it's havin' a hard time. I admire its tenacity."

 

You stick an elbow back gently into his ribs and still your leg. You never realize that you're doing that. "First of all, my body is not 'little,' I am _slightly_ vertically challenged but I make up for that tenfold in heart and grit, and second, you realize that you contradicted yourself literally seconds after that by calling me 'thick,' right? Which I also don't appreciate!"

 

Dave snorts, squeezing your leg. "Baby have I failed to explain to you the concept most commonly dubbed in rap songs as 'slim thick'? It's like, yeah you got a small frame overall but  _goddamn_ from the waist down, also commonly referred to as 'you could sit a cup on that ass,' et cetera. You're shaped like, the most perfect shape ever, as demonstrated by the fact that you're in my lap and you fit perfectly right here."

 

You exhale a little laugh, and pause what you're doing on your laptop. Sink into him, because for all that he words it so dorkily and characteristically colorfully, you love hearing him say those little things about you daily. Dave acquiesces, wraps his arms around you tighter and cuddles you closer. 

 

"Really though," Dave says, cheek on your shoulder. "You're gonna do great. You've got nothing to worry about, and I'm really proud of you."

 

You lift his hand that rests on your leg and kiss it once, threading your fingers together. "Thanks. I really mean it, thank you for hosting us and giving us a chance to get back where we started. I'm still a little nervous that my voice isn't what it was after the hiatus, but I feel confident other than that. I just really want it to go well. For them, if not for myself."

 

Next your laptop, plugged in via USB, your phone buzzes and lights up. Rose, Kanaya, and Terezi are joining the Quadrant launch party at Dave's, and they're arriving now.

 

Upstairs, you retrieve the three of them from the vast foyer; Rose and Kanaya are wearing matching outfits, of course, hand in hand as you open the doors, and Terezi stands beside them grinning at you the way she always did before. When freshman year wasn't tinged with the angst of how your love wasn't going to work out, when she was one of your closest friends and seeing her meant that things in your day were going to get better. In greeting, she lightly stabs you in the torso with her cane and then ropes you into a strong-armed sideways hug, rough and knuckle-sandwich-fluffing through your hair.

 

"Would you stop that?" You'd try harder to escape, but she's stronger than you, this has been established over the years. "It may not look like it but each curl on my head is strategically placed with a metric fuckton of product and I won't have you mussing it before I go on the air."

 

"Like anyone will even see your face!" Terezi lets go of you, but picks at your curls above your head sparingly with two fingers, perhaps attempting to place them back, not deterred at all by your light swatting. Still, it's something novel and exciting that she can see fine enough detail on your face to pick out individual hairs, her black eyes big, attentive and darting. "Unless that is a surprise new feature of the surprise new Quadrant. Can I be in the video?"

 

"No."

 

"This house is nearly infinite," Rose says, gazing about the high ceilings, the wall of glass that shows the golden hills outside. "I know I've been in it before, but seeing it in the daylight really exemplifies the millionaire excess. And  _those windows._ "

 

"Rose does always love a good light source," Kanaya says.

 

"Yeah, as much as I ragged on the guy before for being a selfish spoiled chump," you say, "you can't blame him for happening to born to a guy who lives in a palace. I hate The Valley and I can't wait to graduate in two years, but goddamn does this town have some good real estate."

 

"I thought Dave wasn't born of a human woman," Terezi points out.

 

"That mystery's still unsolved, the hell if any of us ever finds out."

 

Rose and Kanaya start to move on, down the hall that leads to the staircase to the den, but you call after them for good measure. 

 

"Everybody's already downstairs, Adorabloodthirsty is setting up the stream and Dave is probably down there trying to get them to listen to his mixtapes. No matter what he says, do not let him open Soundcloud or so help me, The Quadrant's first day back is going to be an homage to Striderian beats."

 

Rose looks back at you over her shoulder, winks, before disappearing around the corner. "We all know you like his music, Karkat, you don't have to pretend anymore."

 

Terezi, meanwhile, stands and stares out the giant glass windows of the foyer, her face so close to it that as you draw near, you can see a touch of her breath fogging the surface. You wait behind with her for a moment, watching her gaze; her sense of sight has brought her many new revelations, like minute ripples on the surface of the crystal clear blue water in the pool, the depth of the landscape of the hills, the breeze ruffling through the trees. You know that she will always be content with the part of her life where she was blind, and not for a second was she missing out on life before. She saw more in people, more honesty and truth, than almost everyone you know with a working set of eyes. Still, watching her take in her new view of the world, in moments like this, makes you happy that she's learned to see in more ways than one. It gives you some perspective, too.

 

The first day back to school after winter break, Terezi was waiting for you at your locker before first period. She'd wanted to reach out just after the hack happened, but Kanaya and Rose had told her to give you a little time. There wasn't much you could've said, looking back, that needed to be said between you still. Not that in that dark state. But after some time, it hit you that the same wiplash Kanaya and Rose felt when listening to the suicide broadcast must've hit her hard. During your relationship, she had a front row seat to the Karkat Depression Show and it wasn't pretty viewing. She left because she couldn't get you out of it. You can't blame her for that, not anymore. Especially not after she might've feared, for a moment that day, that the depression might've won.

 

Terezi didn't say anything at first, and you didn't open your locker, your heart beating too fast at the fact that she was standing there. Her first move was to regard you, visually scanning all your features, and you realized that besides the day the school found out about you and Dave, you hadn't been face to face with her since she tried making peace at the start of the semester. After which your bitterness had said that Dave treated her like shit and she blindly accepted it. You apologized, but things were different, distant after that. Ever since, you and she had watched each other across quads, learned of each other's goings on through Dave and John. It was always going to happen that she would stop meeting your bluffs with your trickier bluffs, drop the dancing and joking around the point and address the hurt.

 

"I'm sorry we haven't really talked," you started out. "Things have been kind of crazy, as I'm sure you know, and I've kind of been avoiding you because... well."

 

Terezi smiled faintly. "Because you're dating my ex-boyfriend who I cheated on you with." 

 

"Yeah... I've thought about it a lot, and I think the three of us were always orbiting so closely to each other, albeit most of that time I thought I hated him, that we all developed feelings for each other that got twisted and intertwined... I thought I liked him at first because _you_ liked him, and then came to other reasons myself the more time I spent alone with him, but I couldn't help feeling like it was pathetic that I finally moved on, except I wasn't really moving on since he was your sloppy seconds. Not that I think the way you handled things with him was sloppy or that he isn't his own person or you're not yours, but... Fuck, what the fuck am I rambling about."

 

Terezi put her hands on your face, which you only realized was burning when contrasted to her cold palms.

 

"Karkat," she said seriously, though still with the lilt of a smile on her lips. "I meant it when I said that I don't care. I did think it was weird at first, but it was more of a surprise than anything else. Then, when I thought back and looked over the evidence, it made sense. There is such a thing as sexual tension, and I think you two were mad at each other and 'tense' for so long for more reasons than that I was with Dave sometimes, and you sometimes."

 

You didn't know what to say to that, your mouth hanging slightly open. She ran a thumb across one of your cheeks and then returned her hands to her cane, which she'd had leaning up against your locker door. 

 

"Besides," she went on, "I can't say that I didn't deserve a twist of fate. I cheated on you when I didn't have to, and then rubbed it in your face by going out with him in front of everyone. After we broke up, which we decided was mutual and a good idea when we talked about it much later, I had no say in what he did or who he chose to move on with, and I had even less say in what you did and who you chose. I wanted you to be happy, even if I couldn't admit it to your face. And I couldn't because... I was embarrassed. That I hurt you like I did."

 

Her expression had shifted, serious and somewhat somber. She looked away from you to the floor, lashes fluttering as she blinked, and you thought that something like tears were starting to form in your own eyes, watching her think. This is what you wanted for so long, her sharing her mind, her thought process as she calculated her moves back in that time of your lives. This thing that fifteen year old Karkat was so broken up over, standing alone in his kitchen after she left, he thought the world was closing in all around him.

 

“I should have told you I was unhappy," Terezi said. "There was no reason for me to be secretive, act like he and I were just friends when we were _not_. You weren't exactly the easiest person to tell things to, but I should not have lied and made telling you even worse with each passing minute of lies. I could not own up to my bullshit, but this is me now, owning up to my bullshit. It is so owned, it is branded with my name in iron fire."

 

But you stuck on something she said:  _you weren't exactly the easiest person to tell things to._ It hurt to hear her say it, but you knew she was right. You should've told her you were unhappy, too; your unaddressed depression was the giant elephant in the room that you refused to see even less than her. Weekends spent marathoning video games on end while she sat and watched you, waiting for you to spend time with her. Weekends spent in awkward tension that you drowned out with your own crabby loudmouthiness and other futile distractions.

 

"I felt helpless," Terezi said, as if she were reading your train of thought. "I knew how you were acting those last few months was not your true personality, that you were struggling and just having a really hard time. But I felt like I couldn’t find the real you in the fog. Or I felt like, if I pointed out the fog, you would get mad at me and push me more away."

 

You were trying not to cry in the middle of the hall, you really were.

 

"No, I get that," you said, clearing your throat, swallowing the lump. Your voice wavered as you continued, though, and her eyes in yours just made you that much more emotional. "I was being a sad sack, feeling sorry about myself for things in my life that I couldn't even help. And I wasn't getting help... I'd stopped going to therapy regularly, because my dad didn't even check to see I was going and didn't even think it was a good idea in the first place. I had to ask if he would set up the appointments for me, and he basically told me that psychology is 'anti-Catholic' and I'd better not be wasting his money. The Zoloft I was taking, also irregularly, made me feel weird as fuck. You're right, I wasn't the easiest person to tell things to. I couldn't even tell myself to get up and stop letting life run a train on my ass, how did you expect that you were going to be able to? And that's not me saying that I don't appreciate you trying, because... I can't tell you enough how much I _needed_ what you gave me freshman year, someone who was always going to pester me and poke me and wake me up at ungodly hours to go chase honeybees and motivate me to get outside and look at life. It wasn't your fault -  _isn't_ your fault - that I have some kind of chemical imbalance on top of extenuating circumstances that make me... well, me. And part of me doesn't blame you for seeking greener pastures with Dave, even though we both agree that you could've gone about it better. But would I have been okay with you and him being close again either way, no matter when or how you broke the news? No, because I was an insecure douchehat who was ignoring you and then had the right to get pissed off when you started ignoring me back."

 

"I didn't want him, that whole last time we were together." Terezi dabbed at her eyes, sniffled. "I just wanted you. But I didn't know how to make you feel better any more, so I tried to make myself move on. Pyral always told me that you can't save or fix anyone, no matter how much you want to. When I told her what was going on with us, she said that maybe you needed some space. To heal by yourself."

 

The thought of Terezi going to her aunt for advice about this broke your heart a little. As much as you'd written it off as her cheating with Dave for superficial reasons only, she didn't go in blind, purely trying to hurt you. She at least tried to seek some wisdom, and the source was well good. You missed her aunt, always wondered how she was doing. How they'd been navigating Terezi's post-operation.

 

"That is what I needed," you said to her. "Still need sometimes, to be honest. It doesn't have to be alone, not per se, I know that now. Having Dave in my life has helped, a lot more than I ever thought possible, but no matter who I'm dating or who's around me, I have to make that shit _my_ thing. Own up to it, like you said, take some goddamn responsibility. Not blame it on anyone else or let the people in my life get buried under it with me. I made another appointment with the doctor in a few weeks, so. I guess that's a start. Something I'm only doing for me."

 

Terezi paused, looking around at the people shifting past you two in the hall. She left her eyes elsewhere as she said,

 

"I just want you to be okay. Even though I knew I had to leave, I was scared that you would... And then I heard that message on The Quadrant, and I thought..."

 

You hugged her, impulse moving you towards her before you could think to do it. And you were crying, fucking sue you, at eight A.M. in the middle of the Valley View campus, damn who saw.

 

"I'm here, okay? None of what happened with that hacker is any way your fault, you hear me?"

 

Terezi nodded against your shoulder. "Yes."

 

The bell to start first period rung above your heads. You released each other slowly, and Terezi reached up to wipe your eyes for you. She giggled, and you laughed a little too, because her wide, jagged smile does have healing properties. You're glad you can admit that and not be tied in angst with it.

 

"Okay," Terezi said then, definitive, tapping her cane to the ground twice. "The jury finds that Terezi and Karkat both made human mistakes, because we're stupid human teenagers and all of us make them. It further finds the matter of the Dave-Karkat-Terezi love triangle hereby irrelevant, because all of them are happy and honestly you guys are pretty cute, and happiness is all the jury wants at the end of the day. So. Case dismissed?"

 

You chuckled as she walked besides you towards the direction of your homerooms, her arm looped in yours amicably.

 

"Yeah, that sounds good. Case dismissed."

 

In the present, Terezi stands before the glass in Dave's foyer. You join her, looking out at the sweeping natural valleys of your hometown, which for all that you rage against it, is how you met these people in the first place. You wouldn't change how you grew up, not your father staying here even after your mother left, not Kanaya leading you to Terezi in grade school, not the subreddit for this place that led you to Nepeta and Sollux. Not the fact that you've gained this perspective from standing in the house of Dave Strider, of all people, who you love now very much.

 

"You good?" you ask her, watching her watch the clouds roll through the sky.

 

Terezi nods at you, grins. 

 

"I'm ready to help make The Quadrant great again," she says, slapping you on the back.

 

"Gross, don't associate me with Trump."

 

 

 ♋️

 

 

"Greetings, one and all, and welcome back to The Quadrant. A show about love lives, shitty WhatPumpkin apps that attempt to foster our loves lives, and platonic relationships that make all the modern contrasting images about romance in this society seem a little bit less like a clusterfuck. Romance may be a clusterfuck, and who knows if by opening this forum for you and I to share our war stories, we will ever truly understand the pressures and impulses that cause us to orbit around it like cats in fucking heat - you're welcome, AC.

 

"But if I've learned anything from sharing my feelings and anxieties on this program over the last year and some change, it's that love isn't a definite idea. It changes constantly, it grows. It looks different, feels different, depending on who you are when you accept it, who the person that you're sharing it with is, and how often you express it, whether it be to that person or to a caring source who might be able to give you some guidance on the feeling. The one thing that I think is universal, no matter who you love, is this. Love is a boundless resource, even when you think you don't deserve it, and even when it feels like sometimes, it's gone away for good, speaking from experience. Look around, and I think you'll find someone, virtual, real, or some combination of the two, who loves you no matter what stupid thing you posted on Snapcrap last week, no matter how many mistakes you've made, and most importantly, no matter how you measure up to society's definition of someone deserving of love.

 

"This is what I think, my 'two cents.' But everyone out there, call in and tell us: what is love to you? Who in your life has shown it to you most? The shipping wall, for today's episode, asks you to draw an image, represent a ship, however you do your thing, that is most indicative of love to you. And if any of you draw dicks, or towers of dicks, or dicks making out with other dicks while riding dicks saddled up as horses... I guess I won't be that surprised, I've seen so many dicks on the wall in so many ways, nothing shocks me anymore, so have at it. Go, with reckless abandon."

 

"The thow hathn't even been on for five minuteth and you're already talking about dickth, everything really ith back to normal."

 

"Shut the fuck up."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who’s read!
> 
> This was my first multi-chapter Homestuck fic as well as my first swing at DaveKat, and I love them so much, there is surely more to follow.
> 
> Obligatory shoutout to Justin Simien's [Dear White People](https://www.netflix.com/watch/80125300?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C0%2C6036aac20ca9ad2528f667a7ae9567ba42cff965%3Aa75c82008a2bad151f130a6cd581cb1f6d821cd9%2C%2C) on Netflix, which was my inspiration for Karkat's show, among other things.
> 
> I've started a Dave-only POV of this story. It'll be a one shot, granted a very long one, but I'm really excited to get it up.
> 
> Come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/lmalianobles) and [tumblr](https://adiostoreadoormat.tumblr.com)


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